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SEARCH 



WINTER SUNBEAMS. 



SEARCH 



FOR 



WINTER SUNBEAMS 



IN 



' THE RIVIERA, CORSICA, ALGIERS, 
AND SPAIN. 

SAMUEL S.'''"C0X, 

AUTHOR OK "the BUCKEYE ABROAD;" "EIGHT YEARS IN CONGRESS," ETC. 



IV/TJI NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, 



" By what means to shun 
The inclement seasons, rain, ice, hail, and snow. 
Which now the sky, with various face, begins 
To show us * * * while the winds 
Blow moist and keen, shattering the graceful locks 
Of these fair spreading trees ; which bid us seek 
Some better shroud, some better warmth." 

Paradise Regained. 




NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 

90, 92 & 94 GRAND STREET. 
1870. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by S. S. COX, In the Clerk's Office 
of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. 






TO MY CONSTITUENTS 



OF THE 



SIXTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF 
THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 



To you, I have the honour and pleasure of dedicating 
these "Sunbeams" of travel They were made bright by 
your confidence, and cheerful by your indulgence ; without 
which I could not liave pursued them, into far and almost 
untrodden paths — in " search" of the health so needed, and 
I trust, secured— for the duty which yoU have devolved 
upon me. 

WesTxMinster Palace HoteLj 
London, Sept. i, 1869; 



CONTENTS. 



PRELIMINARY CHAPTER. 



EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE — SUNBEAMS. 

Functions of Light — Effects of Light on INlincl and Body — Its sanitai-y 
influences — Music of Light — Analogy between Light and Sound — The 
sunUt shores of the Mediterranean — Historical associations of that sea — 
Corsica an Epitome of Europe and Africa Page i 

CHAPTER 1. 

ATTRACTIONS OF THE RIVIERA, NICE, CANNES, AND HYERES. 

Therapeutics of Oxygen and Pharmacy of Sunbeams — Unwintry winter at 
Nice — The English Promenade — Lambs and Wolves — Churches — 
Madame Ratazzi 12 



CHAPTER II. 

THE RIVIERA. — MENTONE. 

Site and Climate of Mentone — Incidents of days of Convalescence — Influence 
of solar heat in prolonging life — Dr. Henry Bennet's garden — Trans- 
parency of the sea — Varied colours of the Ocean — A drop into the sea — ^ 
The climax of Mentone diversion — The donkey an archaeologist — Rocco- 
bruna — The skeleton in the house — The Cemetery — Garden amidst the 
rocks of Grimaldi 24 



CHAPTER III. 

Monaco : its scenery, history, polity, prince, myths and hells. 

Sea view from the Casino — The local Laureate — Tete du CJiim — The Prince 
de la Roulette — Origin of the famous Corniche road — Explosion of rocks — 
Little Afi'ica — M. Blanc and Roiige-et-N'oir — The Prince the heir of the 
Grimaldis — Their degeneracy — Gigantic mailed effigy of a Grimaldi—^ 
Great antiquity of the dynasty — A Russian Princess at the Roulette-table — 
Operations of the game — Addison's visit to Monaco — The martyred Chris- 
tian virgin Devote 40 



viii Contents, 



CHAPTER IV. 

CORSICA AFAR AND NEAR. 

The mountains visible from Monaco — Embarkation for Corsica — The Corse 
tongue mixed Arabic and Italian — Near view of Corsica from the sea — 
The Sanguinaires — Saying of Napoleon on the perfume of Corsica — Re- 
pulsive funeral custom — Bonapartisni the Genius of Ajaccio — Napoleon's 
birthplace and birthday — Madame Letitia surp'ise a riglise — Napoleon's 
last thoughts about Corsica — Carlo Bonaparte and Letitia Ramolino — 
Fierce democratic speech of Prince Napoleon Page 60 



CHAPTER V. 

AMID 'i'Hii MOUNTAINS OF CORSICA — A STRANGE, WONDERFUL LAND. 

Perfect French Engineering in Corsica — A lunger le cocker — The vSheep easily 
separated from the Goats — Women a califow'cJioif — Labouring gangs of 
Lucchesi — View from the heights of St, Sebastian — A grand granite con- 
gress — Priestly hospitality — Chestnut diet and its results — Olives and 
wild olives — Little work in the Corsican — Heroes of Corsica — The range 
of Monte Rotondo — The family of Pozzo di Borgo — Wild boars and 
bandits in the Black Forest — Dr. Multido — Ascent to Evisa — M. Carrara's 
modest Bill of Fare — Its appetising realisation — Extensive Coup d^ceil 
from Monte Rotondo — ' The caprice of the Eternal Father ' — Ascent of 
Monte Rotondo 74 



CHAPTER VI. 

CORSICAN HISTORY— MOUNTAINS AND COAST. 

Classical associations of the Island — Modern History — Seneca's aspersion of 
Corsica — Seneca without Apostolic or Waltonian pi'edilections — The 
Devil exorcised by St. Martin — The Cure's house at La Plana — Plaintive 
intonation of the Voccro — Anecdotes of the brigand Serafino — La Vendetta 
— Polyglot imprecations against fleas — The Greek Colony of Carghese — ^ 
Greek features of the population — SajDient descendants of Socrates and 
Plato — One-eyed population of Sagone 9^ 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE CLAIMS OF CORSICA AS A HEALTH RESORT, ETC. 

Angela, aged no, the servant of Madame Letitia — Dr. Ribton of Ajaccio — 
The Riviera and Ajaccio in phthisis compared — Coicp a'ail oi mountain 
Scenery . . . . . . ; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 



Contents, ix 



CHAPTER VIII. 



ADVENT INTO AFRICA. 

Landing at Algiers — Its Orientalism unchanged — The Hebrew population — 
Beauty of the Arab and Moorish children — Moorish embroidery — Sisters 
of Chanty — Enfants trouves — The last Dey's Seraglio — His Audience- 
room — Tlie Dey slaps the French Consul in the face — The French con- 
quest — Visit to a Mosque — Sleeping in Mosques, and Churches — Exhaust- 
less variety of raggedness — The Snake-charmer — Negroes from Soudan 
and Abyssinia — Difficulty of permanent African conquest — Enumeration 
of African populations — History of conquests in Africa .. .. Page Ii8 



CHAPTER IX. 



Algerian omnibuses on the Mahomedan Sabbath — The gratte dos of the Kabyld, 
— and of Argyll — Dr. Bennet's botanical Etweka — Enormous ostriches 
and their prices — Male and female incubation — The snows of Africa — The 
Valley of the Fcinnie sauvage — Rock -cut tomb in form of a temple — The 
Cafe chantant of the French Quarter — The Devil an Algerine Dervish — 
Horrible performance of Dervishes — Fanatic Diabolism — A Christian 
Martyr immured alive — The Community of La Trappe near Algiers — 
Forts of the Moorish Corsairs — Reception by the Trappists — Their in- 
dustry and hospitality — Failures in adopting the Trappist discipline 13S 



CHAPTER X. 



AMONG THE KABYLES. 

Myths of Atlas and Hercules — Greeting to the ' New Atlantis' —Statistics df 
Algerian populations — The Arab and the Kabyle compared — Democratic 
polity of the Kabyles — The Kabyle in the matrimonial relation — Specula- 
tions on the Kabyle race — Relationship of the Kabyle and the Berber — 
The fruitful plain of Mitidji — The Cactus a fence even against wild beasts 
— Primitive plough — The Promethean vdpOrj^ — A lady's trial of camel- 
riding — The Marabouts — The Valley of Tizi Ouzou — Kabyle girls and 
boys — Problem on Military Subjugation — Fort Napoleon — Fatima, the 
Kabyle Joan of Arc — Offer to buy Mademoiselle as third wife — Tyrannical 
isolation of Arab women — General character of the Kabyle . . . . 158 



Contents, 



CHAPTER XL 



BLIDAH AND MILIANAH — THE ARABS. 

Orange-orchards of Blidah — Cause and remedy of Malaria — The Gorge of 
Chififa — Louis Napoleon's visit — Arab market — Qualities of the Arab 
horses — Milianah the Damascus of Africa — Description of the City — The 
fat woman — Heroic defence of Milianah against Abd-el-Kader — Suggestion 
to the conquered Arab Page i8i 



CHAPTER XII. 

I^LAIN OF SHELLIF. — TENIET-EL-HAAD. — CEDARS. — DESERT. 

Progress of Steam towards the Desert — Arrival at Teniet-el-Haad — Rue diW 
English as well as a French word — The plague of Locusts — Their devasta- 
tions in 1867 — Migrations of Locusts and Ladybirds to England — Le Rond 
Point — Chain of African mountains — The Algerine Desert — Far out of 
the track of travel — The Cedars of Lebanon on Mount Atlas — Lamartine's 
visit to Lebanon — Dean Stanley's description of it — The climax of vege- 
table glory — The Heart of the Great Forest — The Owl and the Pelican 
of the Wilderness — 5000 feet above the level of the sea — Excelsior! — 
Optimism — Climatic influences of the furnace Sahara — The Salt river — 
Arab and Moorish women — The Delectable Mountain 193 



CHAPTER XIII. 



CONFLECT OF CIVILISATIONS. — FAREWELL TO AFRICA. 

French discouragement of Algerian exports — Experiment of Algerian colonisa- 
tion — Productions and prosperity of Algiers — Injurious effects of Polygamy 

— The sensual Paradise of Mohammed — Moslem Girls' Schools under 
P'rench auspices — Ultimate extinction of Polygamy probable — Interior of 
a Moorish hoiisehold — Madame Rayato — Her dress and jewels — Her 
trenchant expressions on Polygamy — Murder of a French girl — Discovery 
of the Moslem murderer — David's Sling — Unwise war upon small birds — 
Extension of African railways — A Lion-hunter from Gascony — Bounties 
for the scalps of Wild Beasts — The Tomb of the Christian — Dr. McCarthy's 
Researches on Caesar's Campaigns in Africa for the Emperor — The Tonibeau 
Madressen — Abracadabra for Sancta Ec(c)lesia — The picturesque Arab 
Tent disenchanted — * The crackling of thorns under a pot ' — Oran de- 
scribed — The Hdtel (f Orient :i\. Algiers recommended — Departure for Spain 

— Hispania rediviva 218 



Contents, xi 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SPAIN. 

Re-working of Silver-mines — Vandalism destroying a Carthaginian Fort — - 
A Desert in Spain — A Riddle and its Solution — Health Stations in Spain 
— Spain and Africa contrasted — The City of Orihuela — Tempe and the 
Peneus inseparable — Plaintive Spanish Melody — Its resemblance to Ara- 
bic and Corsican Song — The Guitar an old deceiver — A vSunday Bull- 
fight in Murcia — Butchered to make a Murcian holiday — Fierce Anda- 
lusian bulls for the Arena at INIadrid — The Coup de Grace — A burlesque 
Bull-fight — Skittles with Human Ninepins — Snobs and Nobs — Lord 
Flowden's villa — Silkworms — Picturesque Costume of the Peasants Page 247 



CHAPTER XV. 

ELCHE, ALICANTE, AND VALENCIA, 

Approach to Elche — Varieties of the Palm — The driest Climate of Europe — 
Alicante — The Castle of Sax — The Plain of Valencia an Eden — The 
vegetable splendours of Valencia Vale due solely to irrigation — A bene- 
ficial climate for invalids — Suicides in a march under the Sirocco — Vam- 
pires 271 



CHAPTER XVI. 

GRENADA, ANDALUSIA. 

The pachydermatous Mule made sensitive — Mule driving — Andalusia a ter- 
restrial Paradise — Oriental character of Spain — Spanish love of display — 
' Virgiliinii tantitm vidi ' — Reflections suggested by the Alhambra — 
Water-drinking — Fresh tears of the ghost of Boabdil — The Republicans 
feasted by the Author — Oration of an American Republican to the Spanish 
Republicans — A Federal Republic recommended to Spain — Enthusiasm 
of the Audience — Reminiscences of Washington Irving at the Alhambra — 
Changes in the Alhambra within forty years — iNIoorish wailing for the lost 
Alhambra — Diabolism of the Harem 283 



CHAPTER XVII. 

FROM GRENADA TO MALAGA — THROUGH THE SIERRAS. 

The vine-clad mountains around Malaga — Grape culture — Tramping out 
Grapes — Approach to Malaga — Malaga a sanitary resort — Its winter 



xii Contents- 



temperature compared with that of other cities — Rumours of Insurrection 
— An anxious night — Suicide of Count Juhan's daughter — Irrigation areas 
of Spain — Comparative values of irrigated and dry ground — Arcadia and 
Locomotives — Glories of Andalusia — ' God works for us ' — General sur- 
vey of Spain — Spanish climate and intellectual influences — Travelling in 
Spain — Railways, Hotels, and Currency — Character of Spanish troops — 
Santi Ponche on the site of the Ancient Italica — Prevalence of Republi- 
canism Page 303 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



SUjVIMER in SPAIN — SCENES, SOUNDS, AND SENTIMENTS. 

The noDilnis tinihra of Tarshish — Railways and Police Soldiers — The Due de 
Montpensier — Railroads and free-trade — Seville and its Cathedral — 
Caballeros de Dios, or gentlemen beggars — Oriental aspect of Seville — 
A Spanish steamer in 1543 • — The Guadalquiver — Historical vicissitudes of 
Seville — Byron's celebrities of Seville — Oranges and Women — The An- 
clalusian dances — A Funcion or dancing assemblage — Fatima — Throwing 
the handkerchief — 3000 women employed in the Tobacco Manufactory — 
Characteristics of Murillo's painting — His meditations in the Cathedral of 
Seville — Fernando Colon, son of Columbus — The Moor Jaber, the origi- 
nator of Algebra — Shop of Figaro, and Don Juan's house — Fete of Corpus 
Christi at the Cathedral — Pedro the Cruel — Padilla and Blanche of 
Bourbon — Relics of Roman days — Antiquarian research — The ruins 
of Italica — Immortality in noseless marbles — The Amphitheatre of Italica 

— FlN'odo, the badge of Seville — Popular belief in the truth of Don Quixote 

— Gregory, the Guide and Warder of Italica — Montpensier's country 
palace . . . . . . . . 326 



CHAPTER XIX, 



• TOLliDO. 

The skeleton of a city — Its solitary hotel — The story of Florinda, Cbimt 
Julian's daughter, and King Roderick — The original Chateau en Espagne 

— French mutilation of the Alcazar — Remonstrance of the Ancient To- 
ledan Jews as not responsible for the Crucifixion — Eulogium on the Hebrew 
race — Sculptured group of St. Raphael — Slavery of the mind to Symbols 

— Toledo and its American namesake — Retrospect of Toledan history — 
The Blades of the two Toledos — The Sword Factory — A Birmingham 
apprentice to sword-making — The moral of the Toledan sword-blade . 362 



Contents, xiii 



CHAPTER XX. 

ALCOLEA, CORDOVA, AND ARANJUEZ. 

The revolutionaiy victory at Alcolea — History of Cordova — Bachelors and 
male Palms — The Moorish tower of Cordova — The old Mosque — Its 
history — A Christian chained to a pillar for a quarter of a century — The 
Palace of Aranjuez — The Author summoned to appear before the Minister 
at Madrid — Disappointed political self-devotion Page 380 



CHAPTER XXI. 

MADRID— THE CORTES— JUBILEE OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

Caricature in the ' Gil Bias ' — Preparation for the Jubilee — General Prim's 
policy — Summary of the new Constitution — Military spectacle — The 
German Forests the birth-place of Liberty — Don Carlos — Chartered rights 
of Spanish provinces — A Spanish Federation recommended — Inauguration 
of the C onstitution — Living Murillos painted and framed — The Author 
renting a lamp-post — The representative men of Spain — The Cortes Hall 
— Many paintings of Kings, few of Patriots — Speeches of Leaders in the 
Cortes — Prim, Seri-ano, and Topete — The Cortes compared with the 
American Congress and the British Parliament — Military pageant — Su- 
perb Arab steeds of the Cavalry — ' Viva Constihicioii Deuwcratica ' — The 
Prado and the Gardens of Buen Retiro — The last act of the Constitutional 
Drama 391 



CHAPTER XXII. 

MORE OF MADRID — THE ESCURIAL. 

Spanish political parties — The Cortes perpetuates itself — Night turned into 
day at Madrid — Spanish progi-ess — Emigres — Visit to the Escurial — Its 
founder Philip II. — -His death-chamber — A Jubilee of Industry suggested 
— Cornelio, the blind guide of the Escurial — Joseph Bonaparte — The 
Convent of Atocha — Tombs of Narvaez and O'Donnell — Abolition of the 
Salic law — Murillo and the Renaissance — The birth-place of the Poet 
Martial — Costume of the Aragonese ,. ,. ... ,, ..... 415 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

SARAGOSSA — THE MAID— THE BORDER — OUT OF SPAIN. 

Heroic sons and daughters of Saragossa — Story of the Maid of Saragossa — 
Funeral of Monarchy — Isabella's last Spanish breakfast — * In the Bay of 
Biscay, 01' — Biarritz the pearl of a Summer resort — Pynasty of Louis 
Napoleon — Angelic Advent to Spain 433 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Frontispiece— Monaco (coloured Lithograph) . . . . To face Title-pa^e. 

PAGE 

1. St. Louis Rocks to face 26 

2. Mentone (coloured Lithograph) ,, 29 

3. Bone Caves ,, 33 

4. Italian Garden of the Doctor ,, 39 

5. Vico — Corsica ,, 74 

6. Disguised Brigand , . . . ,, 105 

7. City of Algiers ,, 119 

8. Warrior at Prayer ,, I2i 

9. Street in Algiers ,, 125 

10. How the Dey lost Algiers ,, 127 

11. Shoe-Black ,, 129 

12. Ragged Brigade ,, 131 

13. Moorish Tombs ,, 144 

14. Interior of a Mohammedan PI ouse ,, 149 

15. Pirate Cove ,, 153 

16. Kabyles (copper etching) ,, 158 

17. Kabyle Man and Woman 161 

18. Riding Camels . . to face 171 

19. A Running Proposal of Marriage (copper etching) . . . . ,, 178 

20. Arab Women at Salt River. . . . ,, 214 

21. Lady of Milianah 216 

22. Moorish Lady of the Period . . . . 227 

23. Arabs slinging at Birds to face 232 

24. Tomb of the Christian 237 

25. An Arab Tent to face 241 

26. Ticket Office for the Bull Fight ,, 259 

27. Palms at Elche ,, 273 

28. The Alhambra 283 

29. The Alhambra and Neighbourhood to face 299 

30. Moorish Door in Alhambra ,, 302 

31. Aloes. Malaga , ,, 312 

32. Caballeros at Jaen ,, 317 

33. Seville Vendora . . . . ,, 327 

34. Seville Cathedral ,, 331 

35. Toledo ,, 363 

36. Mosque of Cordova 386 

37. Napoleon's Grotto 390 

38. Travelling Harem 414 

39. Lottery at Madrid to face 432 

40. Maid of Saragossa 434 

41. Pierced Rock at Biarritz 440 



SEARCH 



WINTER SUNBEAMS. 




PRELIMINARY CHAPTER. 

EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE—SUNBEAMS. 

"IIK TT'I "115< ^rT* — " Be light ! " " And light was." — Gen. i. 3. 

HEATHEN teacher, Longinus, found in 
this extract the subHmest expression. What 
the world would have been ' without a Sun,' 
the poet Campbell brings home to us by 
the tenderest of illustrations. There is a Light which 
never was on sea or land. It consecrates the poet's 
dream. It is not this illumination, whose beams I would 
presume to search for ; neither is it the luinen siccum of 
the philosopher, nor the inner radiance of the spiritual 
life ; for these may be found in the untravelled tran- 
quillity of scholastic leisure and domestic repose. My 
pursuit was for that Sunbeam, which makes the tree 
grow and the waters flow — which makes the earth 
warm, and the air sweet — which has, in its prismatic 
rays, colours to paint the beautiful flower and the 
pallid cheek. The Sunbeams I craved are those 
which flow from that source whence "the Stars re- 
pairing in their golden urns draw light." I sought 
not the radiation which brings glowing heat, so much 

B 



Functions of Light. 



as that which yields temperate warmth, and with 
warmth, reHef, and with that, health. Hence, my 
search was for Winter Sunbeams. Although the 
search extended into the Summer, it ended — so far as 
my experience went — upon a Swiss mountain peak, 
where, ii,ooo feet above the sea, the Sunbeams were 
discreetly mitigated by the aspect, and tempered with 
the temperature of a hundred snow-clad mountains. 

It would impair the cheerhil spirit of these pages, 
were I to dwell on the physical infirmity which com- 
pelled me to seek a gentle clime ; and yet, perhaps, the 
only utility — and I may add the primary object — of 
this volume is, to point out a path to health, which is 
such, because ' irradiate with beams Divine.' 

What a beam of light can accomplish — has it not 
been the theme of many a girlish composition, as well 
as of scientific disquisition ? The regeneration of the 
Earth with every Auroral advent, is it not a perpetual 
hymn of praise to the Creator of hght, and an ever- 
during and radiant rainbow-covenant of His love ? 
What a beaui can do, even after its untired tour of 
millions of miles, and through uncounted periods of 
duration — how it gilds the starry vault, and builds 
the heavenly structure — how before it the clouds about 
our star dissolve and the blackness of night is dis- 
pelled ; and how chaos becomes cosmos, is but the 
type of what can be wrought upon the human frame 
and spirit by its sanitary and cheering influence. 

It is impossible sufliciently to aggrandize the won- 
derful functions of Light. All the 'powers' of the 
Earth emanate from the Sun. It gives us coal, food, 
wind, and water. Efforts have been made to calcu- 
late some of these mechanical powers, but they are 
incalculable. Engineers may ' estimate ' the work of 
the Sun in evaporation — A billion of tons a day, over 
one hundred and fifty millions of square miles, may, 



Its Medicinal Efficacy 



as they tell us, be lifted two thousand feet high every 
day, equal to a 90,000,000,000 horse power. Even 
this measures but the infinitesimal part of the Sun's 
power, as the earth receives only i-2,ooo,ooo,oooth 
of the heat of the Sun. How this wonderful power 
may be made available — how these horses may be har- 
nessed to the chariot of the Sun, is less interesting 
to mortals, than how its sanitary qualities may be 
utilized. 

What medicinal efficacy the Light has ; how it 
works in the unseen chambers of the brain and body ; 
how it plays from the optic to every other nerve ; what 
relation it bears to the elements of our physical and 
spiritual nature — may, doubtless, be determined by 
the same law under whose administration it gives 
growth to the tree, glory to the grass, and splendour 
to the flower. But what that law is, is one of the 
mysterious arcana of knowledge. 

We know that light is life-generating and health- 
sustaining ; that without it, man becomes blighted, 
even as the parched grass of the field. Take away 
the light, and both serenity of mind and strength of 
body are gone. The very tissues of the body dege- 
nerate in utter darkness. Take away the light, and 
the body becomes blanched, etiolated, and wasted. 
Go to the colUery or the dungeon, and you go to 
the limbo of ghosts ; not ruddy, healthy men and 
women. I need not refer to the catalogue of diseases 
belonging to darkness. ' Weeping and wailing,' even 
in this world, is an inheritance of many of our race 
before thrust into future ' outer darkness,' Aside from 
heat, light has its beneficent function. Experiments 
have shown that life itself will not be generated from 
the egg so soon in the dark as in the light. Dr. 
Hammond once tried an experiment on the tadpole. 
That lively little batrachian was kept in its inchoate 

B 2 



4 E,ff^(^i^ of Light on Mind and Body. 

condition for 1 25 days, by confinement in a lightless 
vessel ; but fifteen days only were required for its 
magnificent maturity out of its wriggling nonage, 
under light ! 

We know how light affects the skin and its hue. 
This is illustrated under various conditions and lati- 
tudes ; in the nightless Arctic regions, where if the 
sun goes down half the year, an aurora, or a snow hill, 
or ice mountain, keeps it up ; and thus, by reflected 
light, colours the Esquimaux into olive and brown; 
or on the African coasts, where the intensity of the 
perpendicular rays secretes in the cuticle a dark pig- 
ment of wonderful gloss and glory ! How it affects 
the stature, the blood, the hair, the liver, the whole 
body in fact, inwardly and outwardly ; how it makes 
men muscular and healthy among mountains, and tiny 
and feverish among marshes ; how it makes one man 
or race sanguine, and another nervo-bilious in tempera- 
ment ; how it affects conditions, customs, and' life, — 
puberty, marriage, sterility, and longevity ; how the 
Light, or its absence, makes men savage or civilized, 
passive or active, doltish or intelligent, stationary or 
progressive ; how in one latitude, and under certain 
conditions, these effects may follow; while under 
another latitude, and under other conditions, other 
effects may ensue, — these are discussions which Hippo- 
crates, Newton, Mead, Jackson, Lardner, Brewster, 
Lindley, Balfour, Draper, Hammond, Page, Herschel, 
Arago, Florence Nightingale, Sanson Alphonse, and 
Dr. Forbes Winslow have considered in elaborate 
treatises. It is enough for me to refer to them, in 
elucidation of my statements. 

In regard to the effects upon the human mind and 
health, induction has left us its repertoire of facts ; 
and has led us to generalize about the very colours 
of the spectrum. Red and yellow stimulate the brain ; 



Its Sanitary Influences. 



blue depresses, by exhausting the vital energy ; scarlet 
makes bulls, and some men, madly pugnacious. It 
has been likened to the sound of a trumpet. Green, 
violet, and all the sweet tints which Nature paints so 
often, and which suit the eye, even as the dark cave 
suits the eyeless fish — these soothe and caress, and have 
in their tints the elements of cheer and health. Pre- 
dominating in the radiance, these elements make the 
life blood of Nature, organic and inorganic. With 
these elements predominant, come ventilated and 
lighted houses, fewer inhabited cellars, less corruption 
and uncleanness, and consequently less disease and 
death. Not artificial light, which has its offensive 
effluvia, but the sweet sunbeams, — this is the light 
which should replace the dark corners of the earth, 
as the precursor of the full meridian of that better 
day coming. The utility of light has its application 
in the construction of hospitals, nurseries, bed-rooms, 
houses, streets, cities ; and, as we shall find out, in 
the arrangement of gardens, orchards, and forests ! 
Physicians have given us the record of diseases 
generated on the shady side of a building or street, 
and of cases cured by removal out of a dark into a 
bright room or locality. 

* Obscurity hath many a sacred use/ 

as Bailey sings in his 'Festus'; but its medical uses 
are not so apparent, valuable, or sacred. Wounds heal 
more quickly, delirium departs sooner, and convales- 
cence comes more rapidly when the system is under 
solar radiation. 

There are exceptions to, these deductions. The eye 
need not be blinded by excess of light. If you must 
go to Egypt and its hot sands, or to Algiers and its 
white streets and houses, or to Russia with its white 
snows, or to parts of France with its white chalk, or to 



Music of Light. 



India with its perpetual glare, — you may expect an 
over-excitement of the retina. Use dark glasses, or 
carry a yellow umbrella, or do as the parasol ant of 
Trinidad does, carry a green leaf over your head, if you 
can find no turban or other cover, and thus save eye 
and health from the injurious red and yellow rays. 
Thus, in travelling you may reverse the gloomy pic- 
ture which the blind Milton so pathetically makes out 
of his darkness ; for then, with the seasons there will 
return day^ and the sweet approach of eve and morn ; 
the sight of vernal bloom, and summer's rose ; the 
flocks and herds and human face divine ; not cloud 
instead, nor ever-during dark ; nor from the cheerful 
ways of men cut off; nor the book of knowledge pre- 
sented with an universal blank! Then, you are not 
only prepared to be restored in health, but you are 
actually restored. Then you can enjoy all these 
effects of light in their aesthetic relations to the outer 
world. Indeed, but for these relations constantly re- 
curring in my journeying, there would have been little 
for me to note. Wherever I found the volume of 
Nature open, there I found sunbeams to illumine and 
beautify. Whatever was seen in or around the sky, be 
it star or mountain, bird or tree ; whatever was painted 
in water, or written on rocks, had been glorified from 
this golden source. 

Light, like Sound, the learned tell us, comes to us 
in waves. Professor Maury has said, with philosophic 
truth and poetic beauty, that the organs of the 
human ear are so ordered that they cannot compre- 
hend colour, any more than the eye can see sound ; 
yet, that we may hear over again the song of the 
morning stars ; for Light has its gamut of music ! 
The high notes vibrate with the violet of the spec- 
trum, and the red extremity sounds the bass ; and 
though the ear may not catch the song that the 



Analogy between Light and Sound. 7 

rose, lily, and violet sing, it may — for aught we know 
— be to the humming-bird, the butterfly, and the 
bee, more enchanting than that which 'Prospero's 
Ariel' sung to the shipwrecked mariners. 

Ah ! there is more meaning here for you, my ship- 
wrecked brother, than meets the ear. The song 
which Light sings to your wearied spirit, may be 
the tone or tonic which will stimulate your flagging, 
suffering life! The gamut of Sunbeams, is it not a 
medical prescription, not in dead Latin, nor measured 
by x\rabic signs, but in living letters of gold ? 

This idea of light may be considered fanciful. It 
is so, to a small extent, but not so much so to the 
scientific man. Whether he take the theory of New- 
ton or of Huygens — whether he regard light as minute 
particles, projected with inconceivable velocity from 
the sun, or as the undulations of an elastic ether — 
he will find in it many analogies to the phenomena of 
Sound. Light is so rarified as to oflef no obstruction 
to the sun and stars in their movements ; but its 
vibrations are so substantial, that by them our eyes 
are struck, our nerves moved, and the sensation 
of fight produced, just as the vibrations of the air 
make sound for the ear. The frequency of the pulsa- 
tions or vibrations of the air determines the note ; so 
the frequency of the appulse of light impinging upon 
the eye determines (as it is held) the colour of the light ! 

It may be most interesting, indeed, to search for 
the sunbeams which make music for the birds, butter- 
flies, and bees, and which these interpret to us ; but 
when health is in question, the hard facts of meteoro- 
logy and optics become of paramount consequence. 
The cool, but pleasant air, interfused with lustre, 
the absence of damp and chilliness, not only are 
conditions which create for the human economy 
an appetite, and thus improve digestion and nutri- 



Metaphors drawn fro7n Light. 



tion ; but they also sing a song of joyous health to 
the diseased mind and dyspeptic soul. 

If a lunatic be one — qui gaudet lucidis intervallis, 
according to a legal dictum — what is he who rejoices 
through all the winter days in sunlight without 
intervals — for lucidity is light. Blackstone calls him 
a lunatic who sometimes enjoys his senses, and some- 
times not, and that frequently depending on the 
change of the moon. What, then, is he, who, hiding 
in dark houses, or worse, in dark offices, or worse still, 
in mines of the earth, but rarely ' enjoys his senses ;' 
and whose mind is aiFected by the peculiar and 
polarized light from an old volcanic, crazy reflector 
like the moon. It is the sun which makes the joy, 
broken by no intervals. It is the sun, with its power 
to sustain, which, not less potential than its power to 
create, gives us that intelligent repose which is one of 
the conditions of health. It is difficult even to use 
the languages of men, in order to express the full 
enjoyment of all the senses, without metaphors drawn 
from the light. Hence the Bible is full of imagery 
about sun, and moon, and the perfect day. The very 
acme of all joys — the joys of heaven — is expressed in 
the words : ' And there shall be no night there.' 

To the same law, which the infant of my vignette 
obeys, when he endeavours to catch the beams about 
his head, the matured man yields, when for his defec- 
tive body he requires fresh vigour and elevated vitality. 
However unsentimental and humiliating it may be, he 
' must be as a little child,' and seek sunshine, even 
across oceans and zones. Even Dr. Fahrenheit must 
be consulted. The pores of the skin — as an excretory 
organ, and as a purifier of the blood — do not perform 
their functions in the cold damp winters of the north. 
Hence, sore throat, influenza, and bronchitis prevail ; 
and when neglected, are aggravated ; and aggravated. 



Sunlit Shores of the Mediterranemi. 



the blood purification, in warm weather, is thrown 
on the lungs and air passages. They having too much 
to do, the burdened blood is poisoned. Hence, in- 
flammations and fevers, and finally the tragic destroyer, 
consumption, closes the scene. Consumption has 
come to be regarded, therefore, as a disease of debility. 
It attacks those whose vitality is deficient heredi- 
tarily, and those who are injured by excesses, either 
of vice or of work. Here enters the sunshine, and 
with its dry, bracing radiance — under proper dietetic, 
and medicinal rules — restores vitality. 

I do not desire to cumber these pages with essays 
about phthisis and membranes. I am happily required 
only to write about the enjoyments which create, and 
which are the proof of renovated health. 

In recounting these enjoyments, I but add fresh 
eulogy to the sunbeams. The associations which Art, 
Nature, Time, and History have inwoven with natural 
scenery, and which bestow that rational delight, which 
an all-bountiful Maker intended as one of the means 
of health ; did more than give enjoyment, because they 
were sought under appropriate conditions of latitude 
and longitude, under the protection of mountain walls 
and hygienic provisions, without which all search for 
sanitary sunshine, in winter or summer, is in vain. 
Survey our star, from China to Peru, and you will 
find no lovelier land or sweeter sun, — none more 
opulent and fruitful, as well in vegetable glories, as in 
all that heroism and romance have illustrated ; and 
what is better, none more salubrious or health restoring, 
— than the sunlit and sea-kissed shores of the Mediter- 
ranean ! 

Selecting a circuit of travel from this — the most 
favoured part of our globe — the writer found physical 
scenery and phenomena of rarest attraction. He found 
a people, picturesque, composite, and interesting, — the 



lo Historical Associations of the Mediterranean. 

result of systems unique, yet diverse, and of blood and 
daring the most heroic and adventurous ; interesting, 
composite, and picturesque, because compounded of all 
the virtues and vices of the pre-historic and historic 
nations. Phoenician, Hebrew, and Egyptian ; Greek, 
Roman, Goth, and Moor ; Frank, Spanish, German, 
and Enghsh — have here done what Human nature, 
under manifold and various conditions, can do, for 
Poetry, Art, Science, War, Commerce, Government, 
and Liberty ! Italian, Spanish, Greek, Jew, Turk, 
German, English, and French — the people who claim 
Homer and Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton ; 
who honour Joshua, Charlemagne, Abderrahaman, 
Bonaparte, and Wellington ; who erect monuments 
to Mahmoud, Henry IV., Charles V., Lorenzo the 
Magnificent, andGonsalva; who reverence Columbus, 
de Gamaj Angelo, Murillo, Gutenberg, and Newton, 
and how many more, whose names stand pre-eminent 
in the history of our race, have made these shores 
resplendent with genius and action. Surely, an 
American, seeking moderate excitement, aloof from 
the moil and toil of active affairs at home, could not 
have chosen a better theatre in which to recall and 
observe, under the sunshine of the latitude — the asso- 
ciations which most adorn our race. 

My circle began at the Riviera under the Alps ; it 
includes Corsica ; thence enters into Africa, and passes ■ 
through Spain and Southern France, until, again in 
the Alps of Italy, it ends, with a view so eminent, that 
it seems to comprehend the whole sweep of nearly a 
year's tour of travel. 

When I reached the point, where the current of 
ordinary travel became visible, I dropped the pen. 
But Corsica, Algiers, and Spain — about which the 
body of the volume speaks — are not hackneyed 
themes, or trodden ground. Corsica, indeed, is almost 



Corsica an Epitome of Europe and Africa, 1 1 

a terra incognita. It is the connecting link between 
the two continents of Europe and Africa. It is in the 
centre of the basin of the Western Mediterranean. Its 
mountains are midway between the Alps and the Atlas. 
They have all the fruitful vigour of Atlas, with the 
rugged grandeur of the Alps, and the vegetable growth 
of each. Volney gives Corsica three zones. Up to 
1800 feet, the climates of Italy and Spain are found, 
with the date palm of Elche and the chamaerops 
htmieris of Algiers, the oranges of Nice and Blidah, 
and the lemons of Malaga and Mentone, — the 
oleander, cistus, lentiscus, and myrtle, which make its 
macchie, like the shrubs of the Riviera and Algiers. 
Above 1800 feet, and thence to 6000 feet, France is 
reproduced, with its vines, olives, chesnuts ; and its 
forests of ilex, ordinary oak, pine, and beech. These 
last indicate the third zone — the climate of Norway ; 
and reach above 6000 feet. The larch w^hich is in- 
digenous to Corsica, and especially the ilex, are gigantic 
trees, and their forests are covered with snow half the 
year. 

Hence in Corsica you have an epitome of my whole 
circle of travel, and of the continents of Europe and 
Africa. Before visiting the island, I presume to print 
two chapters about the Riviera ; partly with the view 
to show why I started from so shining a spot, in search 
of other and distant sunbeams. 



12 




CHAPTER I. 

THE RIVIERA— NICE, CANNES, AND HYERES— 
THEIR ATTRACTIONS, 

HE beginning of the year 1869 found me 
in the Riviera. Where that sun-favoured 
land is, may be best seen by glancing at a 
map of Italy or France. It is a mountain 
amphitheatre. A little correction of the natural irre- 
gularities would make it a semi-circle ; with Hyeres 
at the western, and Leghorn at the eastern end ; and 
Genoa sitting upon the apex of its arch, while Corsica 
points her Cape Corso northwardly, like an index 
finger, directly to the ' superb ' city. 

There are, in fact, two Rivieras ; ' Levante,' on 
the east, and 'Ponente,' on the west. The moun- 
tains and the sea join here to give their glories to 
the scenery ; and the sun looks down upon them, 
during the winter, with smiling serenity. The moun- 
tains are rugged and bold, and the sea blue and 
bright. The picture is that of Beauty reposing in 
the arms of Strength. Here all that we imagine of 
Italy, as the loveliest of lands, finds its nearest approach 
to realization. The army of Alps from Switzerland, 
Savoy, and Dauphiny, which the traveller down the 
valley of the Rhone never ceases to observe and 
admire, marches down to the sea near Toulon, and 
its summits ' fall in,' like good soldiers ; while a de- 
tachment, called the Maritime Alps, move by the 
left flank along the coast until they effect a junction 
with the Apennines. Whither they tend after that, 
whether under the sea to Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, 



Therapeutics — Oxygen: Pharmacy — Sunbeams. 13 

or along the backbone of the Itahan peninsula into 
Sicily, and thence into Africa, to join the serried ranks 
of the Atlas, I may hereafter inquire when I follow 
them thither. My purpose now is to mark only 
that mountain section, whose shields protect the 
shores of the western Riviera. It would be suffi- 
cient for this purpose to call attention to the seg- 
ment of the semicircle which binds Hyeres to St. 
Remo, and which includes a string of sunlit bril- 
liants, Nice, Monaco, and Mentone being the chief 
gems. 

The writer passed a winter along this part of the 
Riviera, principally at Nice and Mentone. A little 
rain now and then, sometimes a harsh wind, hardly 
any frost, snow, or ice, and nearly all the time sunshine 
— so bracing and elastic as to have in its beams the 
vitalising qualities before described, made the winter 
pleasant and memorable for health restoring. Although 
under medical direction, he had the happiness to have 
a physician who did not prescribe low diet and water, 
nor indoors and opiates, nor leeches and blisters. His 
therapeutics were oxygen, and his pharmacy sun- 
beams. He treated me, as he did the plants and 
flowers of his garden. The sickly plant which came 
under his nurture, Hke his patient, had no inheritance 
of ills. The innate constitutional vigour — like that 
of other constitutions, political and otherwise — had 
survived many infractions, and even ' amendments.' 
When parasites attack the tree, they hide their deadly 
work under the fair exterior of moss. To remove 
the parasite, you must scrape away the moss. The 
fungi will then die. By trenching, digging, draining, 
and loaming the roots, the organization of the tree, 
by its native vigour and the sunshine, will do the 
rest. So with the body. Give it pure atmosphere, 
aliment, and plenty of sunbeams to digest ; let the 



14 Unwintry Winter at Nice. 

eye drink and the lungs eat, and even if exposed to 
the winters of Labrador, under a tent of spruce and 
skins, the lungs will fill and expand into health, the 
voice become rounded in tone, and the body strung 
into vigour. Avoiding the languors of a heated lati- 
tude, and the chills of a frosty sky, with not so much 
exercise as to become weary, nor so much rest as to 
grow torpid, but about 60° of Fahrenheit by day, and 
50° by night, and your restoration has begun. Thus 
avoiding extremes, and keeping to the Ovidian mean 
— medio tutissimus ibis^ — the person, like the tree, 
may throw oiF disease, and be braced into a new 
birth and being. The peevish, troubled, dyspeptic 
patient, the disgust of himself and the horror 
of his friends, by inhaling the air and living in the 
shine of the Riviera, will find himself, before he 
knows it, on a donkey, climbing mountains, gathering 
the violet, hyacinth, and narcissus, wandering under 
old olive orchards, soaking in sunlight on the warm 
rocks of the shore, or lounging among the fishermen 
of the beach, or, in some other way, growing into 
a cheerful and contented, because healthy person. 

It was on the evening of the 6th of January that 
we arrived at Nice. December had not been harsh, 
even in London, Paris, or New York. We had seen 
flowers gathered in London in December, and France, 
from Paris to the Mediterranean, was all 'beaming.' 
But there was something at once inspiring and restor- 
ative in the glad sunshine, when, on the morning of 
the 7th of January, from a balcony of the Hotel 
Royale, in Nice, I looked down into an unwintry pro- 
spect of roses in bloom, palms in flower and fruit, and 
children laughing and playing in the garden walks 
under orange-trees, dressed in summer costume ! 

When in the afternoon we drove to Mount Cimies, 
under a loving sunlight, upon roads lined with trees, 



The English Prome^iade. 15 



which were laden with gold orange-^orbs, and, under a 
shadowy groA^e of ilexes, alighted at the door of the 
Franciscan convent, it did not require the excitement 
of the adjacent Roman ruins, nor the priestly vivacity 
and courtesy, to allure us to forget all bodily ailments. 
The Franciscan brethren did what they could to make 
their cloisters luminous ; except this, that the ladies 
were not allowed to go in. I wandered amidst the 
flowers of the convent gardens ; then into the ceme- 
tery, where the ' fathers ' of the past sleep, — admired 
the marble figures, and joining the disfranchised sex, 
who were conciliated with the bouquets I brought, — 
visited the Bath of the Faeries, and returned to Nice, 
after a satisfactory survey, from on high, of our pro- 
mised land. 

Then, we join the mixed crowd of people, of all 
grades and ranks, who, in picturesque groups, gather 
to hear the music on the plaza. Around the palms 
there gather princesses and more questionable people, 
who here resort to hear the band and see each other, 
— spectattim veniunt^ veniunt spectenhir ut ipscs. After 
driving down the English promenade to witness the 
little carriages, all buoyant with fashionable flounces, 
and women hid in clouds of drapery, drawn by swift 
and graceful Sicilian ponies, whose feet twinkle and 
manes crinkle as they race along ; after driving by the 
Casino, wondering at the white, garish, ostentatious, 
almost regal, edifices, and wondering still more at the 
battalions of women in baskets, and on their knees by 
the blue sea, purifying the clothes worn by these gay 
throngs, — washing them in the very face of all this 
meretricious display, — we retire to our rest, with a 
somewhat nebulous idea of Nice and its winter guests 
and gossipers. 

Thus the days and weeks glide smoothly at Nice, 
and nearly thus, they ebb away for a month. They 



1 6 Lambs and Wolves — Churches — Madame Ratazzi. 

are varied by drives and walks. You may visit Smith's 
exquisite Folly, a wilderness of building and gardening, 
overhanging the rocky shore. It was erected by a 
rich Englishman, who became involved— An the laby- 
rinths of his own taste. You may walk to the moun- 
tains behind the city, whence views are commanded 
of all the region about these splendid shores. You 
may, with a select circle, make an occasional dash into 
Monaco, where the pet lambs of fashion gamb/^ on 
the green, and the mercenary wolves (' tigers ' Ameri- 
cans call them) in softly-cushioned lairs lie in wait 
for them. You may go to church in Nice, — Greek, 
Catholic, Protestant, Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, and 
hear the President of the United States prayed for, in 
the company of Victoria and Napoleon. You may 
visit the Turkish baths, the cafes, and the club. You 
will not be at a loss for American society. On my first 
visit to a cafe I knew that two well-dressed young men 
who walked up to the counter were my countrymen, 
for they quarrelled as to which of them should pay 
for the Bourbon ! You may attend the costume balls 
at the Cercle, got up by noble dames for charity. 
There you will see the aristocracy, who, like the swal- 
lows, seek the bright sunshine of the South for winter. 
Some friend will point out the black-eyed Corsican, 
who is Prefect of this Department ; and his wife, 
arrayed in purple and fine laces. You will note, too, 
the celebrated Turkish statesman, Fuad Pacha, pale 
and dying, but plucky. You may see the celebrated 
Madame Ratazzi^ — one of the Bonapartes — with her 
distinguished husband the ex-Minister of Italy. How 
she shines in the centre of a group of gentlemen ! 
She is in the costume of an Oriental queen. She 
wears an immense necklace of diamonds and emeralds ; 
a black, pointed, velvet crown, on the points of which 
jewels glitter in profusion, gives grace to her reginal 



Attractions of Nice. 17 

mien. Her neat Zouave jacket, and her long, golden 
and white, scalloped train, with two sets of scarfs tied 
behind with floating streamers — one for the skirt and 
the other for the sleeves ; these set off the beautiful 
lady, whose name has been much used in the Journals, 
and whom I mention, because she is the impersonation 
of Nice life. Her husband has had several duels on 
her account. He is an intellectual man. He wears 
glasses, has a small head, is slim in person ; and follows 
her about with a smiling ostentation of pride in 
her, very interesting and unique. 

The balls and other inventions of the enemy of 
health and life were not the attractions which drew me 
to Nice. I came to bask in the Riviera sunshine. 
Hence my place is in the fairy voiture. Under crack 
of whip, and with dash of pony, you may drive to the 
Var, skirt the bay, cross the bridge over the waterless 
river, turn up to the right, and, before you are aware, 
observe and be amidst rising vistas of snow- clad moun- 
tains, mountains withdrawn and withdrawing into 
others ; within whose nooks little villages nestle and 
climb, and up whose heights the terraced vine, olive, 
and orange, and the elegant embowered villas reach 
almost to the bleak, rocky summits. Or, you may 
leave the sea-shore of Nice, upon a cold, raw, or mistral 
day, when dust prevails, — for some such days do come, 
— and in the upper valleys, where the tender lemon 
grows in the shelter, and where the mountains by their 
barriers make the air soft and sweet, clamber amidst 
the velvet swards of the terraces ; or visit, if you .will, 
St. Andre and the magical grotto, where the incrus- 
tations and medallions are made by the water trickling 
over the moulds, by the same process which makes 
the grotto so beautiful with stalactites. Or, to fill up 
another day under the sun with something new, you 
may wander in the orange orchards of Madame Cla- 



1 8 Harbour of Villa Franca. 

risse, where the little honied mandarins grow, and 
where the contadine gives you the anomaly of a sweet 
4emon ! 

If an American man-of-war should happen to lie in 
the harbour of Villa Franca, and the feeling to see 
the flag rages, you may satisfy the national craving by 
an hour's drive, and, at the same time, witness the old, 
narrow streets, and picturesque people of this odd 
village ; and from the road thither, look down on 
Smith's Folly by the sea ; on the villa of the songstress 
Cruvelli, who is caged by this beautiful shore; or, 
rising higher than the main road, and leaving the 
carriage, ascend Mount St. Alban, gather flowers by 
the way, see the forts and soldiers, and in one glance 
gather a bouquet of beautiful views from the bluest 
of seas, the gayest of cities, the brightest of skies, 
the greenest of olive forests, and the purest of snow 
mountains ! 

If time hangs heavy on your hands, day by day 
you may thread the fine winding roads leading from 
Nice, among the mountains ; make a visit to the 
' obscure vale,' where the torrent has torn a gorge 
through the pudding stone, and the sunbeams are 
few in its bed, between the narrow walls ; where 
boulders and flowers, children and oranges, are in pro- 
fusion, to add to your diversion. Upon our trip to 
the ' obscure vale', we had ten children in our train, 
carrying boards for pontons in those parts of the vale, 
where the water is. We bought on our return, for 
one sou, a cluster of large oranges, ten on the branch ! 
You can, if you choose, pass your time under the 
gnarled and aged olives with a book ; or wander 
through groves, where lemon, almond, and orange trees 
by the thousand press their fruit down to your very 
lip ; or, if you would, you can go to the factory, where 
the geranium, heliotrope, orange, rose, and violet, are 



Saying of Hippocrates 07i the Aged. 1 9 

weighed by the ton, thrown into vats, mingled with 
horrible hog's lard, to come out the rich scents, po- 
mades, oils, and essences of my lady's toilette ; or 
ramble up to the chateau in the heart of the city, 
under the tall juniper trees, and see the play of light 
and colour upon the translucent sea, or the flash of 
breakers white as snow against the rocks, or watch the 
steamers go out upon its blue bosom, faintly staining 
the sky with a streaming pennon of smoke. These 
employments may serve to make the time dance away 
in the sunbeams of the Riviera. To live at Nice, and 
not to be in the air, is like going to a feast with sealed 
lips. The reason why Nice is so full of people ; why 
one half of the houses are hotels and ^ pensions ' is, 
that it has more than its share of that 

" Great source of day — for ever pouring wide, 
From world to world, the vital ocean round." 

On an afternoon, upon the promenades, you will find 
hundreds of invalids in wheel chairs drawn by ser- 
vants, or in their own pony phaetons. A large pro- 
portion are of the aged. In this summer-in-winter 
they realize the idea of Hippocrates : " Old men are 
double their age in winter and younger in summer." 
Such a company of the sick, however, does not tend 
to make the promenade cheerful. We need the 
bright, ruddy, chirruping children, playing about 
with their nurses, to give redoubled lustre to the solar 
radiance ; and these we have every where searching for 
sunbeams. 

There were, indeed, days, 91? rather mornings and 
evenings, and certainly nights, when the twisted old 
olive roots, lighted by the pine-cones and aglow with 
their radiance in the fire-place, were necessary to give 
a cheer to our room. We had some exceptional 
days. The Sun hid under the piles of mountain 
clouds, the mistral came, and once with a sprinkle of 

c 2 



20 Prison of the Iron Mask and Abd-el-Kader. 

snow and a dash of rain. Yet I think Nice is better 
protected from the winds than Cannes^ and Mentone 
is milder, and less subject to the mistral, than either. 

I spent a day at Cannes, at the villa of Mr. Eustis 
of Louisiana. The air was all balm, the sky all beauty ; 
and the villa of my friend, and especially those of the 
Duke of Vallambrosa, and Mr. Woolfield adjacent, 
are perpetually enamelled in my memory. Flowers 
and fruits, shrubs and trees, made summer here, as in 
the villas and gardens around Nice. These delights, 
however, were enhanced by enjoying them with the 
grandson of Lafayette, Mr. Eustis' guest, who has all 
the affection for Americans which his name evokes 
from us. A middle-aged man, of brilHant intellect, and 
social disposition, he remains a plain republican of 
moderate views, and refuses on principle all prefer- 
ment or office from an imperial source. 

The view from the villa of my friend over the sea, 
including the Estrelle mountain range, and St. Mar- 
guerite isle — famed as the prison, where the ' Iron 
Mask' and Abd-el-Kader were confined — renders 
this spot as attractive as it is possible to be made 
by sun, sky, and land in harmonious combination. I 
have seen, in no place, grounds so beautifully situated, 
disposed and ornamented, as those of Cannes ; espe- 
cially those already mentioned, but Vallambrosa ex- 
cels. The Duke has, around his mediaeval chateau, 
amongst his exotics, Australian plants, and tropical 
trees, including the aloe of Algeria, the orange of Por- 
tugal, the palm of Egypt, the magnolia of America, 
the jujube of Spain, and those especially whose leaf 
and flower are perennially green. His castle is on a 
rock. A flag flies from a tower. A chapel is attached. 
Running waters mingle their music with that of the 
birds in his pine groves. Roses, oleanders, camelias, 
myrtle, oranges, lemons, all that hath fragrance. 



Lord Brougham and his Successor. 1 1 

colour, and grace for the winter, as for the summer, 
here flourish. A visit to Lord Brougham's neigh- 
bouring villa completed my delight at Cannes. Work- 
men were fixing fountains and repairing pipes ; digging 
about the trees, and arranging the turf, under the super- 
vision of a nervous, timid-looking, elderly man — in 
slippers and gown — who is the brother of the late 
Lord Bro\igham, inheriting all his property and some 
of his oddity, but, nothing of that vivida vis animi 
which makes the name of Brougham immortal ! 

Lord Brougham was the precursor of this winter 
exodus towards the South. He led the way to Cannes, 
when for a song lands were sold, whose value now 
makes men millionaires. Here he prolonged his life, 
and made its burden easy. Here the sun warmed him 
into intellectual vigour — long after his natural force 
was abated, and when men thought that he lagged 
superfluous, at least for his fame. 

In writing of select spots where Sunbeams perform 
that benignant office, I could not limit my observa- 
tions to Cannes, or to Nice. These places are but 
samples of the Western Riviera. Every part of it 
illustrates what I would say. From Toulon to Nice, 
and winding with path and road inland to Grasse and 
Draguignan, — along the blue sea, and apart from it, 
and into the garden of Provence, — on the southern 
slopes of Les Maures and Les Estrelles, you will find 
in the flora and in the sunbeams health-giving signs. 
The aloe lifts its stately stem, the umbrella pine 
spreads its broad branches, the pomegranate blushes, 
the cactus, the cork tree, the magnolia, the heliotrope, 
and the jessamine, the aromatic shrubs of the Corsican 
macchie, and the roses of Cashmere, come forth to 
testify to the favour of heaven toward this ancient home 
of the troubadour. The mistral seldom ruffles this 
paradise. Hence Hyeres, St. Maxime, Antibes, and 



22 Summary of Advantages of the Riviera. 

Cannes, are already becoming adorned with Swiss 
chalets, Italian villas, and English cottages ; while 
walks and gardens, hotels and pensions, picturesque 
roads and mountainous paths, are peopled all the 
winter, with the brain-fagged, lung-diseased, throat- 
sore, and body-broken pilgrims to these shrines of 
health. 

The air of the western Riviera is dry, the' sky clear, 
and almost cloudless ; sometimes cool and rainy days 
interrupt the spring-like weather, sometimes dusty days 
come. These occur, however, more and more rarely 
as you go eastward toward Mentone. There the 
stimulus is not so great in the air ; but the sedative 
influences are by no means relaxing. Volumes have 
been written by eminent men to analyze and detect the 
shades of difference between these resorts. Thermo- 
meters and barometers have made their record. The 
wind is watched by disease- detectives, and what it 
brings on its wings, either for hurt or healing — and 
from what quarter — all is chronicled. Each ill, from 
neuralgia to consumption, from the gouty toe to 
the distempered brain, has been subjected to the vis 
medicatrix of the learned, as affected by these haunts 
of health. I have perused much of this literature ; it 
is sometimes conflicting as to minor details, but it is 
generally accordant in the main facts. These are : — 
that all along this shore there are,yfr^/, many curious 
vestiges of bygone times, from the castellated rock of 
Hyeres, to the Saracenic tower above the Pont of St. 
Louis, on the Italian border, to draw the mind from 
the body and its ills ; secondly^ that there is a luxuriant 
vegetation, and an exotic flora in the open air, which 
make the aspect of the scenery varied and pleasing; 
and that the rare flowers of the conservatories and 
gardens of the north are here found in wild profusion ; 
— at once a sign of a mild climate, and a provocation 



Absolute Cure of Consumption. 



to wander and gather ; thirdly^ that not only do the 
mountains make scenery unparalleled, but they shelter 
from harsh winds the shore, and all that grows and lives 
upon it, beneath their auspicious screen ; 2cs\^^ foitrthly ^ 
as the climax of my conclusions, that the air is so 
guarded by mountains from winds, chills and damps, 
and so tempered with sunbeams ; so mild and yet so 
bracing, so full and resinous of emanations from pine 
and fir, and redolent of violet, rose, jessamine, and 
cassia — that, from November to April, the despairing 
invalid may prolong his life ; the suffering, mayhap, 
lead a painless life ; the desponding receive genuine 
exhilaration, and the consumptive, with care, receive 
cure — ABSOLUTE Cure! All these climatic virtues 
spring from the potential sunbeam ; and the best 
theatre of its wonderful 'winter performance' is to 
be found on the Riviera ; and its most eligible point, 
in my opinion, is at Mentone ! 



( ^4 ) 



f IS H = 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE EIVIERA.— MENTONE. 

" O ! I seem to stand 
Trembling where foot of mortal ne'er hath been, 
Wrapped in the radiance of that sinless land 
Which eye hath never seen." 

Anonymous ; attributed to Milton. 

I HE human body is a magnet. If one colour 
of the spectrum — the violet — can render 
a needle magnetic, what may not all the 
colours in unity do for the human magnet r 
Whether light be corpuscular, undulatory, or other- 
wise ; whether it consist of small particles or tiny 
waves ; whether it be vapour emitted from great solar 
conflagrations, flaming a thousand miles high ; — one 
thing is true, its shower upon Mentone is grateful 
and golden. According to science, Light is elementary 
iron, sodium, magnesium, nickel, copper, zinc, hy- 
drogen, and what not. According to the classic myth, 
the flood is metallic — golden ; and, on its undulations, 
came Zeus (the Burner), to hold loving intercourse 
with mortals. I accept the chemistry and the poesy 
— both. Whether it be iron or gold, we can under- 
stand why, deprived of light, the vegetable and animal 
kingdom — including man — degenerates and dies. 
Second-hand moonbeams, and third-hand fire will not 
save. Having started on my search for Sunbeams, I 
hope to be allowed, like other philosophers, to make 
my facts and findings conform to my pre-conceptions. 
What a flood was that, upon whose jewelled bosom 
we were borne into Mentone ! How sweetly it flashed 



Site and Climate of Mentone. 25 

over that vulgar and denser medium, the sea, as we 
followed the Corniche road from Monaco. The iron 
— if iron it be whose element is light — 'entered the 
soul.' It was medicine to the mind^ and so easy to 
take in the open air, sugared with the fragrance of 
rose and jessamine, upon that lofty route along the 
mountain sides ! Here and there the light was checkered 
by walls, over which the orange and lemon looked, and 
in windings where the myrtle and laurel grew, and 
where the greyish-green of olive groves gave its 
sacred contrast to the scene. If that light was iron 
to the blood, it was gold to the eye. Mentone is 
expressly arranged under the sun, for the spectrum. 
Not only is it guarded by the tall walls of the ranges, 
some four thousand feet high, which — one above the 
other, in tiers — throw their well-bossed bucklers about 
it ; but down to the margin of the sea, its two semi- 
circular bays — between Cape St. Martin and Pont 
St. Louis — glisten with unwonted beauty. Without 
making comparisons with other places — and certainly 
not with places on the Riviera, where all is so lovely — 
one cannot see the geranium, heliotrope, camelia, 
magnolia, verbena, and rose flowering into the air of 
mid-winter, — and in Europe, too, and in a Canadian 
latitude of forty-three degrees and more— without feel- 
ing what Science tells : that the sea itself is here 
more tenderly tepid, the sky more serenely clear, the 
atmosphere more elastically dry, and the solar radi- 
ance richer than elsewhere in the unappreciated 
opulence of health. If not better as a climate, for 
some purposes, than other places — such as Pau, 
Madeira, Cuba, Algiers, Palermo, Florida, Egypt, and 
Sonora — certainly the Creator, when He called the 
light down upon this shore — ' saw that it was Good !' 
How much less of moisture there is here than at 
Cannes, Nice, or other places ; how much more suit- 



26 Dr. Henry Bennet. 

able for human ills of throat, skin, lung, or nerve, 
let the doctors settle. I had only one thing to settle 
— myself. I did that in a ' pension ' at Mentone, 
about the last of January, 1869, under the care of 
these solar beams and of Dr. Henry Bennet. It is no 
derogation from the merits of the latter to say that 
he works very happily under the former. In fact, he 
could not work at all without them. Pronounced 
consumptive himself, he prolongs his life in this climate, 
where he winters ; and where, upon the mountain side, 
he cultivates the very rocks, giving to them the colours 
of the prism, and to the terraces a beauty and fragrance, 
from fruit and flower, which make them like a garden 
of the Orient. What is still better, he helps by his 
example and advice many a worn-out patient, whose 
organism is thereby renewed in vigour and prolonged 
in days. 

Properly speaking, the bay within whose shore Men- 
tone lies, and where these marvels are wrought, is 
between the point, not far from Nice, called L'Hospice 
and palmy Bordighera on the east. But it seems more, 
snugly esconced between Cape St. Martin and the 
Murtula point, near the Border. This division leaves 
out of this chapter Monaco, and its magnificent 
panorama of fort and palace, sea and mountain. 
Monaco has a chapter for itself; but, having some 
drawbacks, it must wait until I pay my respects to the 
more moral Mentone. 

Why I have preferred Mentone to other places of 
the Riviera will appear as I ramble amidst its moun- 
tains, and repose under their shelter. The rocky 
ridge of the east end of the bay, where most I used to 
saunter, makes not only a natural boundary for Italy 
and France (at least France found it so), but its 
height is a guard from eastern winds. The lower 
range of olive and orange hills behind the town, is 









'^ 



m 



Temperature of Mentone. 27 

itself guarded by lofty amphitheatres. These shelter 
it from east, north-east, and north. Still loftier Alps, 
some of them 7000 feet, running inland far, shelter 
it still more from the north, east, and west. Thus is 
Mentone left to the influences of the sweet south. 

Its temperature is, therefore, mild enough to grow 
the lemon, which is too tender a fruit for the frosts 
which sometimes visit Cannes and Nice. The shape 
of the shore — bending south-westerly — the mountains 
following inversely, makes the space between shore 
and mountain outlets for wide valleys. The south 
wind is not at once chilled by the snows of the moun- 
tains ; while the Boreal blasts are tempered by pass- 
ing over the intervening lower spaces. Hence its 
warm, yet bracing airs. Hence, not too much mois- 
ture — little rain and so much fine weather. Hence, 
again, — since I am here to be out of doors, — I am 
glad to miss the mistral of Provence and the siroccos 
of Africa. Consequently, I do not wonder that in 
twenty-seven years, the thermometer has descended 
here only thrice below the freezing point. Nor will 
the reader be surprised that there was scarcely a day of 
winter here, when we did not find sunbeams, under 
which to take walks, make excursions, and gather 
wild flowers. This, too, even though it has been an 
exceptionally cold wdnter in southern Europe ; for at 
Rome, Naples, Florence, and Genoa, the snow and 
the frost have made those charming cities almost 
inhospitable. 

It is not my purpose in these preliminary chap- 
ters, to reproduce personal experiences. What is to 
be seen in the w^ooded valley of Gorbio ; what 
delights are to be found in climbing up to red- 
rocked, romantic Roccobruna; what varied attrac- 
tions Boirigo and Cabrolles present ; and what flowers 
you may gather, and what sketches draw, in the vale 



28 Incidents of Days of Convalescence. 

of Chataigniers, even up to the rugged summit of 
St. Agnes, crowned with a feudal castle ; what drives 
upon the broad causeway, shaded with plane trees 
in the Carei, leading you upward and onward toward 
Turin into a little Switzerland; what green terraces 
you may count rising from the vales of this route — 
terraces rising by the hundred to the mountain-tops 
crowned with pines and snow ; into what gorges you 
may wind upward to Castiglione, whose cascades and 
rocks afford many a study for the artist and stanza 
for the poet ; what an Arcadian spot you enter on 
the road to the jagged end of Cape St. Martin, whose 
extreme point is a wild ten-acre lot of ravelled, ragged, 
and black limestone, against and over which the sea 
washes, and at times tempestuously roars ; what sweet 
little violet ravines and eglantine nooks, solemn plateaux 
of olive shades, and wayside nests for orange and 
lemon ; what highways westwardly to Monaco and 
eastwardly to St. Remo ; what enchanting walks 
amidst the boulders, caves, rocks, and sands of the 
shore ; these, if pictured by a masterly pencil, would 
interest. They are but the incidents of luscious days 
of convalescence, passed under the sun, to etch 
which even is not my forte or my purpose. I speak 
of them only as the decorations of that antechamber 
of the temple of the sun, into which I am privileged 
to guide the worshipper. The result from this kind 
of life has been to make new blood, and to give 
normal vitality. The principle which cures the un- 
strung larynx and cicatrizes the wounded lung, has 
here had the open air for its adjuvant, and the rari- 
fied, sweet light for its handmaiden ; and its highest 
benefaction consists in the restoration of those hitherto 
believed to be incurable ! What other adjuncts are 
required, let others discuss. What doubts are to be 
solved in the minds of the incredulous, let them be 



Infltience of Solar Heat in Prolonging Life. 29 



solved by studying the new and progressive ideas 
which medical science has evolved ! I do not write of 
causes, but effects. 

It is no new thing — solar heat — for the prolonga- 
tion of human life. It is an old medical maxim : 
Levato sole levatur morbtis, Pliny, speaking of his 
uncle, says : Post cibitm aestate si qnid otii^ jacebat in 
sole, I can well understand why in the eastern and 
southern land, the solario was built on the house- 
top, where the diseased were placed and the healthy 
took what was called their solar-air-bath. My baths 
of sun and air were taken upon the terraced moun- 
tain sides in Dr. Bennet's garden. I present in these 
pages a lithograph, copied from a water-colour draw- 
ing by a lady, for which I am under obligation to 
Dr. Bennet. It is from his volume of 'Winter Cli- 
mates in the South of Europe.' In it, you will perceive 
but little of the garden ; that I reserve for another 
sketch. The Saracenic tower of the foreground, 
w^hich overlooks the panorama of Mentone to the 
west, is far above the Italian boundary line. That 
line is formed by the gorge of St. Louis, — a pic- 
ture of which the reader will see, and over which the 
Corniche road leaps with an elegant bridge. The 
distant range of the sketch is that of the Estrelles, near 
Cannes. The view presented between the Estrelles 
and the gorge in the front, is of such varying love- 
liness in shape and colour, on land and sea, that it is 
impossible to keep the eye from its embrace. No- 
where does Nature unclasp a volume so full and 
splendid with illustration ! 

I had not been long in Mentone, before I was 
ordered up to this spot. I obeyed. The tower had, 
flying from its rounded top, an English flag. This 
was the sign that the Doctor was expected. Sometimes 
the Italian, sometimes the French, and sometimes the 



30 Dr. Bennefs Garden. 

star-spangled banner floats in the air — signs for the 
initiated, that the garden is open to all, or that 
the Doctor is busy or away, or something else. It 
has a curious utihty, and has had a curious history, 
— this old tower of the middle ages. It was once 
used as a 'look-out' to the sea, that the people of this, 
then isolated and unfrequented coast, might be alarmed 
in time, before the Turks and Moors swept in with 
their corsairs, to capture, despoil, and destroy. 

Let us walk up to the garden among the rocks. 
We pass a Roman ruin — never mind ! Seats for rest 
line the path. We reach the gate. We read : ' Salvete 
amtci r That welcome is inscribed, as the hospitable 
Pompeians used to inscribe it, on the portal. Out of 
these rocks — once bare, by skilful terracing, and in 
three years' time, the Doctor has made with the aid 
of water, which he leases from the proprietor of 
Grimaldi village above, and out of the Sunbeams 
which he has conscripted, and for which he has no- 
thing to pay, — long avenues of vines, flowers, trees, 
and scented shrubs, whose forms, colours, and odours 
invade and capture the sense, as if from some un- 
earthly, dreamy realm. Even his rude stone pillars, 
which appear in the picture, are clad in the festoons 
of Eden. The very stones seem floral. In a rustic 
arbour a hammock is swinging ; and a fountain is 
dripping — whispering and dripping — over the fern 
leaves of the grotto. It is a monotone of tranquil, 
liquid lyrics. If you prefer a divan to a camp stool, 
there it is ! There is a table too, with a green tapis, 
pen and ink, books and periodicals, and a lunch of 
mandarin oranges, good white bread, and pure red 
wine. Do you want more for comfort ? This is the 
salon de reception ; and while swinging in the ham- 
mock, and enjoying its dolce far niente delights, far 
up in the Elysian air, and warmed by the very rocks. 



Transparency of the Sea. 31 

which have retained the geothermal heat of last 
summer for some purpose, either to man or flower, 
— I began to feel that Nature is exceedingly kind, 
the garden exceedingly paradisiacal, and the Doctor 
exceedingly clever ! Who needs the Medoc of the 
lunch, or the novels and poems on the table or other 
adventitious aids, to enhance the enjoyment ? Im- 
mersed in this warm bath of light and air, the eye 
will float out over range after range of mountains. It 
will catch the sparkle of the myriads of crisp waves of 
the many-hued sea beneath. Or it may watch the line 
of snowy breakers which swell and surge against Cape 
St. Martin ; or it may pierce the misty distance, to see 
half-veiled the Isle of St. Marguerite, near Cannes. 
It may look below at the sea-gulls playing upon and 
above the waves, or at the soldiers of the two nations 
on the bridge of the boundary gorge, searching pas- 
sengers for contraband ; or very near, glance at the 
game of croquet, as it is played by the Doctor and 
a Russian princess in the little plateau of a lower 
terrace, near his conservatory, or it may observe the 
gardener, Antoine, petting his children — the flowers, 
and plucking violet, camelia, or rose, either for princess 
or caprice. 

But most the eye rests upon the sea beneath. It 
is so easy to drift on its surface. Then you see so far 
into its clear depths. It is said that light cannot 
permeate further into the water than 700 feet. I have 
read that in the arctic regions shells are seen at 80 
fathoms ; and at the coral banks of the Antilles, it is 
said that the sea is as clear as the air ; that coral and 
seaweed of every hue display all the tints of tropical 
gardens. Light has so much to do with these ' marine 
views ' that physicists have made many experiments 
as to the photo-chemical and physiological qualities of 
the Beam on and under the ocean wave. Why the 



3 2 Varied Colours of the Ocean. 

waters below our garden are so lighted ; why the very 
bottom can be seen, with its sand, weed, and rock, 
determining the various colours of the surface, depends, 
of course, upon its transparency. Various media may 
give varied colours to the ocean. The Gulf of Guinea 
is white ; the sea is black around the Maldives ; 
there is vermilion off California, owing to infusoria ; 
the sea is very red near Algiers, owing to water plants ; 
and the Persian Gulf is green. Around the Poles the 
transition is rapid from ultra-marine to olive-green. 
Minute insects have much to do with all these prismatic 
phases ; but in a sea not so deep, the bottom has most 
concern with the hue. Chalk gives green ; yellow sand 
gives dark green ; a dark ground gives black or brown ; 
and grey results from brown soil. But in the sea 
beneath the Doctor's garden all these colours, especially 
the blue tints, enchant the gaze ; for they are as ex- 
quisite, changing, and evanescent as the colours of 
the opal. And these colours have their gamut — 

" Hear I not— 
The iEolian music of the sea-green plumes ? " 

Thus bathed in body and mind in these refreshing- 
elements, and so far from the hum and hurry of active 
life — from which I had just emerged — is it strange 
that I failed to remember that it was winter, and in 
Europe, too, or that I was an heir to the ills of flesh ? 

Thus the winter wears away, amidst rock-land, 
sun-land, and flower-land, but very like dream-land. 
Of course, this experience is varied. Even the song 
of Philomel, oft repeated, loses its charm. You may, 
as I did, leave the hammock, and its reveries and 
rest, and if sure of foot and head, clamber through 
the olive and lemon terraces above the garden, into 
the red, rough rocks. You may follow the precari- 
ous goat-paths, below Grimaldi town, and investigate 
the grottos where the shepherds hide with their flocks 




03 

> 
< 

U 

z 

o 
OK 



.i,Ji!if'll'' '1' 111/! 11,1 i' 



A Drop into the Sea. 



from the sun's glare in summer. You may thus 
obtain a more extended view ; see the towering fort of 
Ventimigha, and the white specks which indicate the 
villages of St. Remo and Bordighera. You may, tired 
of rocky eminence, wander below into the Corniche 
road, and observe the vetture, en 7'oute for Genoa — 
full of English and American tourists rushing by — in 
sleepy content or disgust at these rocky defiles, little 
knowing the paradises above them. Or, still below 
the road you may follow the broken paths along the 
sea, under frowning red rocks, and look in upon the 
" bone caves,' wherein the skeletons of the prehistoric 
men were found; or in rocky inlets and sheltered 
nooks, play with the white surf, as it rolls up the 
music of multitudinous pebbles, or smoothly washes 
the white sand ; or if you desire human society, you 
may saunter among the washenvomen who line the 
rivulet, which steals down into the sea, and gossip in 
the worst patois with these useful dames. I remem- 
ber them well. I shall never put on a particle of 
pale linen without invoking a blessing on them. They 
are a kindly company. When, venturing out one 
day upon the rocks, little recking of their slipperi- 
ness, and not observing a big wave, which was 
approaching, and 'abounding in grace,' from one 
mossy boulder to another, I fell in. Having emerged, 
all dripping and green — did these angels of the tub 
laugh ? No ! I did ; but it was a sorry laugh. 
Whether because accustomed to the washing pro- 
cess, or whether from inbred courtesy, — they arose 
— each a Venus from the soapy foam — arose from 
their baskets, and proffered sympathy and succour ! 
Bless ye ! children of the sunny sheen and unsavoury 
suds — bless ye ! When afterwards I strolled that 
way, was I not known r and their few sous per day, 
were they diminished by reason of their gentleness 

D 



34 The Climax of Mentone Diversion. 

to the awkward stranger? I do not, however, re- 
commend hydropathy for steady treatment at Men- 
tone. Still, one drop— into the sea — is not much. 
The sea scarcely feels it. 

You may still more vary the life at Mentone by 
two kinds of excursion. The pony-basket phaetons 
of Nice are there ; and what Nice has not, Mentone 
has, the promenade on a donkey. This latter is a 
most delightful recreation. If you are weary of the 
garden, or the shore, or the mountain and olive 
groves ; if the hurdy-gurdy of the Tyrolese tramp, 
or the song of the strolling Figaro, fail to interest ; 
if you can extract nothing from the Catalonian 
peddler of shawls and knives ; if the lemon girls, with 
full baskets on their heads, trudging into town, knit- 
ting as they march, lose their picturesqueness ; if 
the old town, with strolling acrobats, its noises, mar- 
kets, narrow streets, churches, cemetery, and castle, 
fail to amuse or interest ; if the drawing of the con- 
scription, and its dancing, rollicking, singing satur- 
nalia, do not arouse you out of ennui, then run 
down to Nice for the Carnival, dash over the moun- 
tain behind Sicilian ponies to Monaco, and try your 
little game on Monsieur Blanc and his Roulette, drive 
over to Bordighera, and ramble amidst the palm trees, 
and make endless bouquets of wild flowers ; or what 
is best, endorse the Mentone donkey ! 

A donkey ride is the climax of Mentone diversion. 
It will take all day, for owing to the change of 
temperature after sunset, you must be home before 
^\^, Send for the fair Judith, or her mother, and by 
nine o'clock you will find donkeys at the door, capari- 
soned for the ascent. Choose your animal. They are 
all sure-footed ; but there is a choice. Get up an 
imposing cavalcade. It looks romantic, thus to be 
moving up the narrow, stony paths, which are trodden 



The Donkey an ArchcEologist. 35 

only by the lemon girls, with their heads basket-laden, 
or by peasants driving their goats and sheep. Visit 
some of the towns which hang about the edges of the 
ridges, or go to the top of the beautiful ridges them- 
selves, overlooking the sea. There you may make tea 
with the pine cones, or take lunch in the midst of 
aromatic shrubs,. 

The Mentone donkey is as handsome for a donkey 
as he is sagacious. Very rarely is he otherwise than 
docile. The voice of the driver from behind suffices 
to guide the animal. Our pet donkeys were 'Bijou' 
and ' Grisette.' They answered to their names with 
alacrity and serenity. Thus you may ascend to 
Grimaldi, Castellare, Roccobruna, and St. Agnese, 
rising from 800 to 2400 feet above the sea. There 
is an agreeable sort of timidity in thus creeping upon 
these safe little animals along the perilous, precipitous 
points, though it is more agreeably safe to follow 
the bridle or goat-tracks, under the shadow of the 
olives, and among the flower and grassy terraces. It 
is charming to go still higher, and play at hide-and- 
seek with the sunbeams, which glance through the 
resinous pine-trees. And it is still more buoyantly 
delightful, when you attain your best elevation, to 
gaze oif into the blue-tinted air over sea and shore, 
and drink in, with the pure oxygen, the full spec- 
tacle ! 

The donkey is an arch^ologist. At least, he fur- 
nishes the opportunity to investigate the ancient castles, 
which were formerly built, away from the sea, in spots 
almost inaccessible. The pirates of Barbary, in making 
their raids for fair women and strong men, hardly 
ventured so high for their slaves. The castle at Rocco- 
bruna especially is hard to ascend — even if there were 
no foe to prevent. Under the guidance of the children, 
who meet you with flowers, and are ready to direct 

D 2 



36 Roccobruna, 



you for a pittance, you may sound the old haunts 
and cisterns, and scour the nooks and prisons, from 
turret to foundation. These make Roccobruna the 
most interesting of the mountain towns. What adds 
to this interest, is the fact, that the town has shd 
away from the mountain. Its red rocks of Hme- 
stone and pudding-stone have been torn by some 
convulsion or caprice from their ' old fellows ' ; and 
the town is curiously dropped about, and amidst 
the chaotic debris. Many of the families live in and 
between the fractured rocks. 

We have visited the houses of these cheerful moun- 
tain people. They earn but little with their lemon, oil, 
and wine ; but that little is much to them. Go with 
us into one of those twisted, contracted streets. It is 
hardly wide enough for the pannier of the donkey. 
There are many stories to the rude, stone, glassless 
houses. Many families live in one house. The first 
floor is for the donkey. His musical note advises 
you of his proximity and confinement. You ascend 
some dark stairways, and enter a neatly swept apart- 
ment with one window ; it is adorned with pots of 
flowers. The floor is of red square earthen tiles ; you 
see two small beds, a bureau, old chairs, some prints 
of saints, and, at the head of the bed, a dry white 
palm leaf, already blessed ! A very Httle kitchen is near, 
only ^N^ feet square, with its cooking furnace, and 
windowless ; huge piles of large, long loaves of bread 
with a big bottle of wine are massed together in a 
corner, both bought for a week in advance. All the 
dirt is given every day to the scavenger who takes it 
ofl^ to the terraces where it has its uses. 

Going into one of those rooms in the old town of 
Mentone, I find that it accommodates a man and 
wife, and one child. The bread for the week costs 
thirty-six cents. The woman of the house is one of 



The Skeleton in the House. 37 

my washerwoman-acquaintances of the sea-side — her 
name is Lisa. She earns, from sunrise to sunset, about 
thirty cents for her work. Her husband works on 
the railroad for the same wages. They have httle or 
no cooking. The bread is bought at a co-operative 
bakery ; and the wine is its only bibulous accompani- 
ment. Said she : — ' Sometimes we have soup. If my 
husband comes home first, he lights the faggot, and 
makes it ; if I come home first, I do it. Once a week 
we have a pound of fish or meat — generally reserving 
this treat for Sundays ; though when the railroad 
presses, he works often on that day.' After com- 
mending her frugality, she told us the secret of her 
discontent — the skeleton in her little household. She 
was labouring so hard to pay a debt of her first hus- 
band's last sickness ; it was 200 francs. It has a year 
to run, but the interest is in arrear. How to make 
ends meet, pay the interest, and sink the principal, by 
her small earnings, this is the Sphinx's problem of 
Lisa's life. Chancellors of the Exchequer and Secre- 
taries of the Treasury ponder similar problems about 
larger sums, and fret less about them than Lisa. We 
gave her our financial theory, and, what was better, 
we helped her. It is so easy here, with so little, to 
do so much. The flowers, wherewith every day our 
rooms were adorned, betokened the gratitude of the 
woman. She could not do enough for us. She acted 
as our guide among the relics of the old town. 
Meeting so many children, I remarked that they were 
all girls. ' Ah L JVLonsieur,' she said, ' it is the air, 
without doubt.';- We asked her to show us the cemetery 
at the top of the town. She consented. Bonnetless, 
with a little handkerchief on her rich dark hair, her 
little girl tripping ahead, we began the ascent amidst 
the narrow and dark alleys. An old lady meets us. 
* Where are you going, Lisa?' — 'To the cemetery!' 



^S The Cemetery. 



— 'Well,' sang out the crone, 'I won't go there till 
they carry me.' We reached the cemetery. I was 
almost sorry that we had asked Lisa to take us thither. 
She had not been there since her first husband's 
funeral ; and though he was buried here, she had been 
too poor to mark his grave, even with a nameless 
wooden cross. Here was a fresh crucifixion of her 
love. Her child persisted in asking for her papa's 
grave. The tears came. She went within the chapel 
to hide her sorrow, where, doubtless, in fervent prayer 
— full of young memories — she found a prism of 
sunbeams through her tears ! Around upon this 
rocky apex of the town, the wealthier families are 
buried. Their white marble tombs, in the shape of 
little chapels, are lighted with tapers, decorated with 
engravings, images, and paintings, and covered with 
bouquets of living flowers. I am not sure but this 
is as sweet a burial spot as I ever saw ; for it is 
secluded from and above the world, and overlooks all 
the rare scenery of ravine and mountain, sky and sea ! 
I found the peasants of the Riviera, like Lisa, 
honest, simple, kind, and not ill-looking. They have 
not lost their original virtues by the increase of the 
foreign and invalid population, or by the enhance- 
ment of their lands, labour, and produce. This small 
Italian town, like the other towns of the Western 
Riviera, is becoming surrounded with suburban villas 
and pensions ; but the primitive costumes and habits 
remain. It is seldom you see any one lazy, certainly 
not the women. How often we meet that old woman 
—a sample of the whole — who trudges along with her 
donkey, knitting; sometimes elevated between two 
casks of wine and the pine-branches, and sometimes 
afoot, but always knitting. When the railroad is 
completed from Monaco, and through to Genoa, all 
this underclifF of health stations, from Hyeres to St. 




4 



Garden amidst the Rocks of Grimaldi. 39 

Remo, will be filled, the winter through, with visitors, 
tourists, and health-seekers. By that time the hanging 
garden of my friend, amidst the rocks of Grimaldi, 
above the Border, will have been enlarged, and still 
more beautified. Already he has completed the pur- 
chase of manifold more piles of rock ; and soon he 
will throw fairy bridges over the abysses, around which 
I have climbed with him, — erect more terraces, employ 
more hydraulics, and cut more paths on the mountain 
sides. When I return to the scene, I shall no longer 
find the goat-caves, the limestone seats, and the elixir 
of the sunbeams, amidst their present ruggedness. I 
shall find all changed into the elegances which a 
cultivated taste and a skilful gardener can evoke out 
of the very rocks of this favoured shore* 



( 40 ) 



I 



CHAPTER III. 

MONA CO — ITS SCENER V— HIS TOR Y— POLITY— 
PALACE — PRINCE — MYTHS — GAMBLING 
HELLS — ROADS AND PEOPLE. 

* Aggeribus socer Alpinis, atque arce Monoeci 
Descendens.' Virg. Mi^. vi. 830. 

' Power from hell, 
Though heavenly in pretension, fleeced thee well.' 

COWPER. 



= H R ^ 



H E Prince — sovereign and independent — 
who rules this microscopic realm of Monaco, 
has a laureate. I have seen his verses, and 
read his prose. His prose is poor poetry, 
and his poetry is purely prosaic. He closes some 
prose by saying : — ' If Horace had known Monaco, 
he would not so often have sung about the Tiber.' 
I agree with the laureate. Another writer has written, 
that to visit Nice and not see Monaco is like going to 
Rome and not seeing the Pope. So I resolved to go. 
In fact I have been there several times, and by several 
routes. I have seen it by day and by night, under 
hght and shadow ; but how shall I describe it ? 

I am at a loss whether to paint it under gas-light, 
moon-light, star-light, or sun-light. As I am in search 
of ' sunbeams,' a photograph would be best ; although 
a photograph might not give all the shadows which 
Monaco, completely pictured — after Rembrandt — 
morally and physically, deserves. I have not been 
drawn hither by the enchanter, who flourishes his 
rdteau over the green tapis of the gaming-table, but 
by the irresistible fascination of sky, sea, and land. 



Sea View from the Casino, 41 

Last evening, when I arrived from Mentone, the 
globes of gas were illuminated throughout the gaming 
grounds of Mount Carlo, and in the palace grounds 
across the bay. This morning I have wandered about 
Carlo, in the fresh air and sunshine, and the enchant- 
ment is enhanced. But wandering soon grows irksome. 
You want to repose and dream. If the reader will sit 
on one of the green chairs which line the parterres of 
the Casino (or gambling palace) fronting the sea, and 
under the parasol which the palm, orient-like, lifts 
over him, and follow my errant eye, he may see a 
picture worth remembering. 

Look out seaward first! Directly in front is my 
favourite isle, Corsica, now under the deep veil of dis- 
tance, which this morning lends to it no enchantment, 
for the isle is not in sight. A white cloudlet hangs 
over the spot where the island, I trust, still remains. 
To the east and on the left, upon the horizon's rim, 
is a dark, azure band, which, as it runs round to 
the west, becomes fainter, till it fades into a glistening 
line of silver. Between that rim and your eye is the 
expanse of the sea. It is streaked with currents of 
lighter hue ; some running as straight as canals, and 
some meandering like rivers, ' at their own sweet will.' 
Scarcely a wave is on its bosom ; only diamond 
points, rippling in the sunshine. Six ships, sails set 
and blanched, are seen ; but without motion apparently. 
They seem like ' painted ships upon a painted ocean.' 
The steamer from Nice with its flag of smoke, which 
itself takes the blue hue of the air and sea, moves 
along, leaving behind it a bright line made by the 
fretting of the tranquil element. Below us, on the 
right, is the little harbour, above which, . separated 
from the Casino grounds of Mount Carlo where we 
sit, is the fort, palace, and village of Monaco, the old 
Phoenician harbour of Hercules, and now the little 



42 The Local Laureate. 

Nation, dropped on a point of rock into the ethereal 
and marine blue. A fishing boat and a pleasure boat ; 
these and no other signs of life are on its waters. 
From our point of view we may see down into the 
lucid depths of the sea. Its colours rival the flowers 
of the garden where we sit. But how shall I transfer 
into black type that which is so varied in hue and 
delightful to the sense ? A writer has said that the 
sea upon this Riviera is a book of which one never tires. 
Charles Lamb was asked which play of Shakespeare 
he liked best. He said, the last one he read. So my 
last look at this wonderful water is the best. It is 
not alone the richness, but the fickleness of its hues 
which pleases. Its mutations vary with the hours, 
and run through the chromatic scale in two senses — 
music and colour ; from lily-white to ebony, and from 
red and orange to green and blue. From its low 
murmur, hke a sigh or sob, it rises into thunder, 
especially when the mistral of March moves along the 
shore. Even the local laureate, in his prose, rises 
into poetry in speaking of the music of the shore : 
' Toujours la nappe bleue de la mer semble toucher 
les cordes cCu7te lyre en baisant les points des rochers^ 
It has been likened in colours to a dove's neck, Wight 
green, dark purple, soft ultra-marine, the blue^of a 
burnished steel blade, the glance of a diamond, and its 
foam to snow ! 

The prospect of the shore is, however, still more 
inviting. Far off to your left lies, under the feathery 
mist, Ventimiglia, with its .old castles now held by 
Italian soldiers ; and beyond it, is Bordighera^ — home 
of palms. These villages look like specks of white 
upon the dark edge of the distant shore. Between 
them and Cape Martin is a beautiful bay, within which 
lies Mentone. The bay and town of Mentone form 
the figure 3, and divide the old from the new town. 



THe dtL Chien. 43 



Mentone, however, is hid from our present view by 
Cape Martin. The mountains do not seem to me so 
rugged and cragged seen from Monaco ; only one 
above me has this look. The rest are in curves. The 
eye can easily float along their tops, and be gratified 
while looking down from them upon the olive-trees 
which nil and decorate the terraces, or into their 
valleys, where, snug and green, the lemon orchards 
perennially flourish — ^^float until it comes against that 
bold^ irregular, jutting, fire-torn and water-worn, castle- 
like mountain, behind which Turbia village lies un- 
seen, called ' Dog's Head.' Wherefore called I know 
not. Perhaps it is Canis called, because Canis non. 
It looks more like a tortoise. 

Stay ! I remember now that T^te du chien is a cor- 
ruption for Tete du camp ; for here Caesar established 
the head-quarters of his legions after the conquest of 
Gaul. Hue usque Italia dehinc Gallia I Here, too, 
you may see, just peeping above the heights, from 
our seat at the Casino, a Roman tower, in romantic 
ruin. Across the bay, and immediately beneath the 
' Dog's Head,' is the rocky promontory called Monaco. 
Its walls, pierced for cannon, surround it. It is about 
two miles in circumference ; its fort overlooks the 
sea. Its palace overlooks the valley which separates 
it from the mountain above. The fort and palace 
look puny beside the giant mountains above them. 
From a sea view of Monaco it looks like an island 
rock. This rock is about 460 feet high. Green vines 
and shrubs cling to the almost precipitous sides of the 
cliff's. On the other side, towards the west, there 
is some ground cultivated with olives and figs. My 
laureate says, in his volume, that sailors, as they sai]^^ 
can gather the big Barbary figs from the shore. 
Doubted. You may perceive an open plaza above 
on the rocky principality. It fronts the palace, within 



44 '^^^ Prince de la Roulette. 



whose walls art is represented in its utmost opulence. 
Venetian mosaics and frescoes, attributed to Caravaggio 
and Carlone, and precious marbles and rare paintings 
are to be found within these walls. It is said that 
the Prince is a great patron of the finest of the fine 
arts. In the gardens around the palace are seen 
umbrella-pines, tall cypresses, the lentiscus, gigantic 
aloes, tamarinds, roses, and other flowers of tropical 
luxuriance and quality. 

If you would saunter over the rock, you may find 
some dozen brass field-pieces, unlimbered and lying 
on the ground. They bear French marks of the 
time of Charles X., with the Latin motto on them : 
" Ultima ratio regumr Very little rationality they 
will display on behalf of his Serene Highness Charles 
III., Prince de la Roulette. If you would leave these 
precincts of insignificant royalty, you may dive down 
into the narrow streets of the old town, where donkeys 
only go, and where, when they are loaded^ you may be 
sure they do more execution than the cannon in the 
plaza. The town of Monaco is like all the villages 
of this shore. It is made of stone ; the houses can 
almost grasp hands across the street ; they were built 
for fortresses as well as domiciles, and the people live 
in them pretty much as they did when Augustus 
Caesarstopped here on his return from the wars. 

Remember that the rock of Monaco, and the town 
proper — for a view of which, I refer to the frontis- 
piece of the volume — are across the harbour from 
us as we sit in the Casino grounds of Monte Carlo ; 
but both places are within the little principality. I 
have not done with my glance along the mountain- 
range above, or the sea-shore below us. You will 
perceive a road winding along the sides of the moun- 
tains, as far up as the brown rocks of Roquebruna. 
The road, now and then, hides its line in clusters of 



The famous Corniche Road. 45 

olives, now emerging from an orange grove, now 
boldly turning about the edge of a precipice, and 
then creeping into the shadows of a terraced moun- 
tain. This is the famous Corniche road, on which 
it is sacrilege not to travel. I have been over it from 
Nice to Bordighera. Although it runs to Genoa, yet 
the best views are from that portion which I have 
traversed. Ruffini opened his 'Dr. Antonio' — that 
exquisite gem of a novel — with a description of this 
highway. Flanked by the Mediterranean, and the 
Alps, and Apennines, and, covered with a sky that 
seldom frowns, he has pictured it in words as an artist 
would from his palette : " The industry of man has 
done what it could if not to vie with, at least not to 
disparage. Nature." Numerous towns and villages, 
some gracefully seated on the shore, bathing their feet 
in the silvery wave, some stretching up the mountain- 
sides like a flock of sheep, or thrown picturesquely 
astride a lofty ridge, with here and there a solitary 
sanctuary perched high on a sea-washed cliff, or half 
lost in a forest of verdure at the head of some glen ; 
marble palaces and painted villas emerging from sunny 
vineyards, gaily flowering gardens, or groves of orange 
and lemon trees ; myriads of white casini with green 
jalousies scattered all over hills once sterile, but now, 
their scanty soil propped up by terrace shelving above 
terrace, clothed to the top with olive trees — all and 
every thing, in short, of man's handiwork, betokens 
the activity and ingenuity of a tasteful and richly- 
endowed race. 

The road, in obedience to the capricious indenta- 
tions of the coast, is irregular and serpent-like ; at one 
time on a level with the sea, it passes between hedges 
of tamarisk, aloes, and oleander ; at another it winds 
up some steep mountain side, through dark pine 
forests, rising to such a height, that the eye recoils 



/ 



46 Origin of the Corniche Road. 

terriiied from looking into the abyss below ; here it 
disappears into galleries cut in the living rock, there 
it comes out upon a wide expanse of earth, sky, 
and water ; now it turns inland, with a seeming deter- 
mination to force a passage across the mountain ; and 
anon shoots abruptly in an opposite direction, as if 
bent upon rushing headlong into the sea. The variety 
of prospect resulting from this continual shifting of the 
point of view is as endless as that afforded by the ever- 
changing combinations of a kaleidoscope. Could we 
but give this sketch of Ruffini a little of the colouring 
— real colouring of the country — what a picture we 
should make of it ! But we cannot. It is past the 
power of words to paint the brilliant transparency of 
this atmosphere, the tender azure of this sky, the 
deep blue of this sea, or the soft gradations of tone 
tinting these wavy mountains, as they lie one over 
the other. Rarely will the traveller, searching for 
summer sunbeams in the winter, find a heaven so 
bright as that which makes a canopy, with the olive 
and the orange, over the Corniche ! 

For a long time this route was only a donkey track. 
There was formerly so little, and such unfrequent 
communication between the points of the coast, that 
the pirates of Barbary could and did easily pounce 
on any village and ravage it, before succour could 
come. Persons are living yet, who remember when 
a convent of friars was carried off in a raid by these 
marine robbers. Besides, the Italians were jealous of 
the encroachment of the French, and for a long time 
discouraged the making of a road. But in 1828, 
owing to a heavy snow storm, the King of Savoy 
could not get from Nice to Turin. He embarked on 
the sea. It was so boisterous that he put back. Then, 
the people turned out en masse, and made the road 
for him. Napoleon I. improved it. Now you may 



Explosion of Rocks. 47 



see going to and from Nice and Genoa, hundreds 
of I'dturc every day. They are loaded with ba2:2:ao;e 
and lilled with travellers. This is the best route to 
Italy, except over the railway, by ]Mont Cenis. This 
winter that route has not been open all the time, by 
reason of the snow. Nor is it favoured by invalids, 
and even less by tourists, who desire to see the 
Ri-^-iera. Just before the holy days at Rome the 
throno- of carriag-es was immense. The railroad from 
^Marseilles is finished as far east as Nice ; in fact to 
^lonaco, and by next September it will be at Mentone. 

Boom ! boom ! boom ! Right under our seat at 
the Casino gardens, shaking the vases of geranium 
which crown the balustrades, the explosion of rocks 
resounds ! Look over ! Several hundred workmen 
who are building the railroad walls between the Casino 
and the sea, are standing stock still, watching for the 
next explosion. The smoke rises and floats away ; 
a boy upon a rock sounds a horn as a warning, and 
boom ! boom ! boom ! the explosion again and louder ! 
Rocks of tremendous size fall far into the sea ; the 
sound is echoed by other explosions beyond ; the 
mountains catch up the sound, and the reverberations 
tell of the work on the railroad which inflicts wounds, 
apparent on the coast as far as Cape Martin — wounds 
soon to be healed and hidden bv the veg-etable glories 
of the climate. 

The railroad has been begun since my laureate 
wrote, or he would not have called ' ^Monaco a held 
of repose for all the living. No one labours here. That 
misery is unknown. The sun does all the work and 
works for all' But the sun does not make rail- 
roads, though it may, with the aid of irrigation, 
stanch the wounds or hide the scars which labour 
is making along these romantic mountains. It may, 
too, bring balm by its beams to the tired and worn 



48 Little Africa. 



throat and lungs of the invalid. In that way, the 
sun may prove a physician, more skilful than those 
accredited by collegiate authority. 

If you choose, you may come to Monaco from 
Nice by the rail, or you may come by the little 
steamer, or by the Corniche road. You will not, 
however, see more than four miles of sunbeams out 
of the sixteen, by the railroad between Nice and 
Monaco. There are twelve miles of tunnelling through 
the hard limestone. You pass under beautiful and 
painted villas — under gardens which would shame the 
Hesperides, literally of golden fruit and perpetual 
flowers ; you pass through the olive gardens of Cimies, 
an old Roman city, cross a viaduct, flash under Monte 
Albano, many hundred feet under the fort, then out 
again, into the sweet sunshine which flashes on the 
old towers, houses, and beautiful bay at Villa Franca ; 
here you may see the fig, as you see it in the Orient, 
but it is a brief glance ; another gorge, and you emerge 
on Beaulieu, under the shelter of a blue bay, whose 
eastern side is the rock of Monaco ! You are nearly 
two hours on this trip through 'little Africa,' as this 
region is named — so named because of its tropical 
luxuriance of soil and African warmth of sun, even in 
mid-winter. Flowers and fruit, palms and cactuses, 
bright patches of the green gardens and blue sea 
alternate with the darkness of the tunnels ; glimpses 
of daylight all splendid, and of night all Egyptian. 
Yet I prefer the trip on the Corniche road in the 
Nice corricolo, or in post-chaise. Thus you may see 
the landscape all the time ; and what may you not 
see ? Eza, a village of 600 souls upon the very apex 
of a mountain rock coped with a tower, where are the 
remains of a temple of Isis 2000 years old ; Turbia, 
full of people just out of the Roman days, so primitive 
they seem, and ruhis speaking of the early and eminent 



M. Blanc and Rouge-et-noir, 49 

with the immensity, richness, and variety of the 
prospect. 

You will understand, therefore, that Monaco is very 
accessible. Every day crowds of the noble and rich, 
sojourners of the Riviera, from Cannes, Nice, and 
Genoa, come to Monaco to gamble and to gaze ; to 
gamble and to lose ; to gaze and to wonder ; to study, 
if you will, the strange history of this anomalous little 
kingdom and its institutions. Before Nice was an- 
nexed to France, our laureate sang of Monaco and its 
incongruities in a poem I have seen, addressed, " a son 
altesse serenissime Charles III." thus : — 

" A deux pas de la France, au bord de la mer bleue, 
Sirene qui caresse en frappant de sa queue 
Son rivage embaume, 

Est un endroit charmant : rocher ville fantome, 
Etat, principaute, republique, royaume, 
Par les siecles forme." 

But this picture was written before Italy ceded Nice 
and Mentone to France ; before Roccobruna, like 
the rocks themselves, revolted from its old attachment, 
and became a part of the French empire. This 
picture was made before the present Prince of Monaco 
— independent and autonomous in his government — 
conceded to Monsieur Franqois Blanc the right to 
establish the ' speculative science' of Rouge-et-noir in 
his dominions. 

I believe M. Blanc is a German, though the name 
sounds French. He owns the gaming bank at Hom- 
burg, where he lives and fares sumptuously amidst 
grounds of imperial extent and beauty. He pays the 
Prince a rental of 100,000 dollars, or a half million 
francs per year for the concession. He pays all the 
taxes of the principality and for the gas-lights of the 
place. There is no octroi or customs duty. It is 
forbidden to the people of this Lilliputian realm to 



5o The prince the heir of the Grimaldis, 

play ; and by arrangement with France, the business 
people of Nice are also prohibited. Yet I think the 
authorities of France do wink slyly at the invasion of 
the agreement. 

The people who are forbidden by the agreement 
with M. Blanc from playing, console themselves with 
this smart wit of a Frenchman : ' Sometimes Rouge 
wins, and sometimes Noir, but always — Blanc' To 
the devotee of Trente et Quarante, this play upon 
words needs no explication. 

I said that the law was not observed. An artist at 
Nice told me that Napoleon was rather remiss, or if 
he was not^ M. Blanc and the prince were, and that 
Napoleon ought to capture Monaco. He said, shrug- 
ging his shoulders : ' Napoleon took Sebastopol ; but 
could not take Monaco ! Pourquoi non ? ' The prince 
spends his winters in his palace here, when he does 
not spend his time and money in his hotel at Paris. 
His right to Monaco is hereditary, as the heir of the 
Grimaldis, whose ancestor Giballin Grimaldi, brother 
of Charles Martel, fought the Saracens, and w^as re- 
warded for his prowess and success by being made, 
by William I., Count of Aries, independent and sove- 
reign. This sovereignty was recognised by the treaty 
of the great powers at Vienna. Mentone and Rocco- 
bruna created a revolution in 1848, and drove out 
the prince. They enjoyed independence till i860. 
Then the prince sold out his rights to these villages 
to France for three millions of dollars ; as much as 
we gave for Louisiana ! I think, notwithstanding 
the ostensible independence of the prince, he may be 
a sort of feudatory of Napoleon. Some fine day he 
will wake up, ' annexed ' to France. The people, 
however, will not like it. Even Mentone people — • 
those who are subject to conscription — pine for the 
old days when they were of Monaco. I was present 



I 



Their dege^ieracy. 5 1 



when the conscription was drawn in Mentone, and 
saw the terror of the young men when drawn, and 
their revehy, song, and saturnaha as they danced 
through the streets, when they were not drawn. I said 
to one, ' Wherefore so much hilarity ? Your turn will 
come again/ ' Yes,' he replied ; dolefully adding, 
' Mentone was happy ten years ago. We then be- 
longed to Monaco, Monaco never waged war and 
had no conscription.' This was true of late years ; 
but in the olden time the Prince was the ally of 
Italian or French ; and further back in the olden time, 
the Prince was always a warrior, and bound to Pied- 
mont in feudal relations. Still it must be confessed, 
the little principality has survived many strange revo- 
lutions during its twelve hundred years of existence. 
We bow to it accordingly. 

Some months after this paragraph was penned, the 
writer visited Spain and Italy. He never lost sight of 
the Grimaldis. They have enough of the mixed 
bloods — Mahomedan and Christian, Moor and Italian 
— to keep them from being de- vitalized. When 
revelling in the halls of the Alhambra, or rather 
clambering above them into the halls of the Genera- 
lifFe, he spied the genealogical tree of the Grimaldis. 
It was illustrated by the portraits of the tribe. But 
suppose they are of Moorish descent ! what then ? 
Nothing. Suppose they did turn against their race ; 
what then ? Much every way ; and chiefly this : that 
the perfidy is a token of character for which all the 
' hells ' of Monaco, or under it, have no prison ade- 
quate in the supply of caloric and sulphur ! I should, 
however, be ungrateful for the courtesies extended by 
the administrator of the Grimaldis, did I not do 
justice to that family. 

I have said that the family were bound to Piedmont 
in feudal relations. While at Turin, in June, I sought 

E 2 



52 Gigantic mailed effigy of a Grimaldi, 

the Armoury. Stopping before the effigy of a giant, 
clad, full length, in mail, — mail tinct with silver, and 
rich in every joint and rivet of its harness. I ask, 
' Who ? ' The guide says, ' Grimaldi of Monaco ! ' 
*Not he of the present?' I said; 'This one is big 
enough to hold in his breast the present Prince ; 
big enough to hold in his iron frame all the small 
princes around. What is his name ? ' I inquire. ' I 
do not know,' said the guide. The coat of mail is 
marked with an 'F.' Perhaps he was named Felice, 
or perhaps, Ferdinand! He was one of the * giants 
of those days,' when the Charles Martels wielded 
swords equal in length to our muskets. His feet and 
legs were decorated with white boots. His armour 
was nailed with brass. His '. blade was Toledan. His 
plumes were white and black, symbolic 'of his Moorish 
and Christian blood ! ; His vizor was down. He 
seemed as inscrutably mysterious, as would the ^ero 
in algebra, or on the roulette tapis, to a Kabyle. But 
the very armour and the mien of this knight, gave 
him the substance and spirit of endurance. Amidst 
the jewelled swords of the Savoy dukes, the torn 
battle-flags of 1831, 1848, and i860, which Italy has 
preserved to honour her army and its leaders, amidst 
the effigies of mailed kings and soldiers of the past 
and present, upon horse and on foot, surrounded 
by men-at-arms and musqueteers, this form of the 
Grimaldi stands proudly eminent. 

It was pleasant to see, afterwards, the easy, modern, 
elegant Prince Charles ; and to know that time tames 
the hot blood, and reduces the grandest forms. The 
mailed hand of the middle age, which wielded the 
battle-axe, is now gloved with Alexandre's best. The 
head which was hid beneath the vizor is circled by 
the glossiest of silken hats. The great white boots 
above the knee are now of patent leather, and very 



I 



Great antiquity of the dynasty, 53 

petites. Whereas the earlier Grimaldi glowered 
through and under his helmet, fierce as a Moor 
and brave as a Christian, and fought many a bloody- 
fight, and many a bloodless tourney; we are sad- 
dened to learn that the present Grimaldi is almost 
blind ; and whereas the progenitor was a warrior whose 
sword was of undoubted metal, whose ' coated scales 
of mail, o'er his tunic to his knees depend,' and who, 
by his spirit and puissance, won Monaco, — the pre- 
sent prince, a Christian gentleman, rents his gambling 
franchise for a roulette hell, at one hundred thousand 
dollars per annum ! 

It is, however, also pleasant to learn, that the pre- 
sent Prince, chief of a dynasty dating from a.d. 968, 
is only fifty years of age ; that he may live many years 
yet to enjoy his ample rental and domain ; and that 
he is both courteous and benevolent ; that he lives 
for most of the year at his chateau of Marchais 
in France, never visiting Spain, or caring for his pos- 
sessions there, although he is a grandee ; and that his 
chateaux in France, Spain, and Monaco are ever open 
to visitors. It is quite interesting to read, as I have in 
a French Paper, that a company of gentlemen lately 
visited his chateau of Marchais, and finding a modest 
man in the grounds, slapped him familiarly on the 
back, saying, ' My brave man ! Think you we can 
visit the chateau ? ' ' Certainly — Shall I show you 
in?' 'Allans!^ After the unrecognised Prince had 
shown them about, one of the company offered him, — 
hhn^ the grim Grimaldi — a ' small zuhite piece of 
money.' Did he accept ? Aye, and with a smile ; 
for saith the chronicle, is he not the only sovereign 
of the earth, all of whose subjects are gentlemen ? 
Is it not a fact of history, that the Emperor Charles V. 
ennobled all the people of Monaco ? Who will say 
hereafter that the people of Monaco, and by conse- 



54 Talleyrand's relationship to the Grimaldis. 



quence, those of Baden-Baden, Homburg, and Wies- 
baden, are not all gentlemen — ad ujiguem ? 

Again, to balance my description discreetly, let us 
remember that these Grimaldis of Monaco have done 
much in peace and war. They hirnished four grand 
admirals to France. There the Saracen was deve- 
loped, not to say worse. They gave to Genoa eleven 
doges, and one captain-general to Florence, and one 
chief grandee to Spain. Many generals and diplo- 
matists have they furnished, and once one of their 
number was of the order of the Golden Fleece. This 
last Grimaldi did not however, allow roulette. 

I must drop a few grains of allowance on my de- 
scription of the Grimaldis and of Monaco. Their 
history is so obscure that one might be allowed to 
romance about them. The simple fact is that Monaco 
was one of those allodial domains which, by reason 
of the favour of the strong in the feudal days, 
escaped feudal confiscation. The reigning family 
of the Grimaldis died out in the male line. Our 
Prince is in such strong contrast with the big knight 
in armour at Turin, because he represents the female 
line. Antonio was the last of the warlike males. He 
died in 1731. His daughter married a Frenchman, 
Thorigny, who was a relative of the Talley rands. 
Hence, at the Congress of Vienna, the title, which 
was disputed by the Genoese family of Grimaldis, was 
preserved, by the influence of Talleyrand, to the pre- 
sent family. The king of Sardinia was at first suze- 
rain over the Prince. In 1848, when Mentone and 
Roccobruna revolted. Piedmont annexed them, and 
placed her soldiers there. In 1854 the Prince endea- 
voured to regain Mentone, but failed. France, on the 
annexation of Nice, bought the rights of the Prince, 
and Napoleon is now Suzerain. Still the Prince 
reserved the ancient privilege, and is called Sovereign. 



Alt army of three rank and file, 55 

Certainly, he has an independent princely rental from 
the Casino, although it is situated outside of his rock- 
founded village and fortification. M. Blanc can 
afford to keep the Prince in his realm. Last year, 
notwithstanding his expenditure in the beautifying of 
the Casino and its grounds, he cleared sixty thousand 
dollars. He is purchasing more land, and is to build 
another hotel and gambling house. His franchises in 
Germany, under the Bismarck policy, expire in 1870, 
and, wiser than M. Benazet of Baden, he is preparing 
a permanent investment here. 

But what of the Casino, and its gambling hell? I 
would prefer to wander about the enticing grounds, 
drink the inspiring air, watch the people come and go 
out of the cafes, shooting galleries, photographic 
shops, and carbineer offices, rather than go within. I 
should like to see the army of the Prince manoeuvred 
upon the plaza. A humorous friend tells me, that 
this army once consisted of three — rank and file ; and 
when, on a great occasion, the order was given — 
' by twos,' the third man, in despair, incontinently 
rushed into the sea ! This is almost as tragic as the 
scene on an Irish schooner ; ' How many are you 
below ? ' sung out an Irish mate. ' Three of us, 
sor ! ' ' Then half of you come up ! ' 

But if you will go within the Casino, there is much 
to see. There is much of decorative Art in the in- 
terior ; many fine frescoes, and much gilt on the walls. 
The music in the concert saloon is especially grand, 
and so are the bedizened servants of M. Blanc. 
Besides, you must doff your hat, and yield up cane 
and umbrella. You approach with reverence the pre- 
siding goddess of the place — Fortune. The green 
tables are surrounded by her votaries. The chink of 
gold and silver — none of less denomination now than 
five francs — resounds above the din and hum of con- 



56 A Russian princess at the roulette table. 

versation. One half of the players are women, dressed 
in all the peculiar attire and fashion ' of the period.' 
The players are generally well dressed. There are 
many mysterious young women, and raffish, middle- 
aged men — a strange mixture of lorettes, musicians, 
actresses, counts, blacklegs, and old countesses. The 
predominant genius of the place, who might stand for 
Fortune, is a young woman of touzled hair, natty 
high-heeled shoes — heels in the middle of the sole, and 
gorgeous dressing upon the back! There does not 
seem to be much eagerness for the play ; I look in 
vain for the fierce-eyed, anxious gambler of the stage 
and novel. A Russian Princess — who is reputed to 
have lost several fortunes — monopolizes the first table 
of Roulette. She plays notes ; and in a musical way, 
too ; for her voice^ — calling her numbers in French 
— keeps time to the notes she drops. Occasionally 
she gathers, with her neatly-gloved hand, rouleaux of 
gold and clusters of bills, and that, too, with as much 
sang froid as one of her own native ice-bound 
streams. While she plays, all stop ; for she takes 
up quite a majority of the thirty-six numbers. 
Around the other tables — of roulette and trente-et- 
quarante — people with sharp eyes and sharpened 
pencils note down the alternations of the game and 
play at intervals. They concoct in their minds — as 
many a victim has done before — infallible rationalia, 
or systems of successful play. Such and such figures 
and colours, * they say,' have come up to-day, as 
winning: ' Argal, they will come again!' They 
watch the sequence of the figures, and suffer the con- 
sequence. The croupiers rake in the money easily; 
twirl their little ivory balls deftly; and deal their 
cards gracefully. There are some six tables. You 
will find a tiger under or about each ; but his paws 
are velvet, and his claws are unseen. You can hardly 



operations of the game. 5 7 

comprehend — unless you play at one of the tables 
long enough to be familiar with the monotonous 
French jargon — what the croupier says, as he calls 
on the betters to make their game, or announces 
the results : Here one sings : ' Noir gagne et couleur 
et rouge perd r That is Rouge et Noir; and the 
jingle announces the receipt and dispensation of the 
money. Over there, at the Roulette : ' Le jeu est 
fait, rien ne va plus F and down goes the specie. 
The mise is placed ; it cannot be changed after the 
words are uttered. Then the chances are announced, 
' Pair ' or ' Impair ; ' ' Passe ' or ' Manque ; ' ' Rouge 
et Noir ; ' and, if fourteen comes up, ' Qitatorze., 
rouge, pair^ manque^. Chink, chink, chink ! Adieux 
to many a fond Napoleon ; and the game goes on. 
Now and then this procedure is relieved by a vivacious 
quarrel. A woman of the demi-monde claims — or 
maybe she thieves — the winnings of an unsophisti- 
cated novice. He makes a feeble resistance ; she 
insists ; he retires, discomfited and blushing. Then 
a sophisticated habitue makes a quarrel with one of 
those accomplished women, or with the croupier, 
perhaps. It looks like a fight. But they never fight ; 
a quiet man — is it M. Blanc ? — drops in and sweetly 
settles it. ' Make your game, gentlemen ! ' On goes 
the game, till the midnight hour comes, and the com- 
pany goes. A rush is made for the carriages, and the 
Nice cars, or the cloak room ; the lights are put out. 
Nothing but the pure sea ' beats the banks ' at 
Monaco till next day at noon ; when water, shore, 
sky, sun, trees, flowers, and all the allurements of the 
natural scenery are forgotten again in the pursuit of 
fickle Fortune. 

Many should be glad to forget the fortunate or 
unfortunate associations of Monaco in the pleasing 
myth which attributes its origin to Hercules, or in 



58 Addison s visit to Monaco. 

recalling to memory the sweet story of the beginning 
of Christianity on its shore. Joseph Addison visited 
Monaco in 1701. His travels in Italy are scarcely 
ever read now-a-days ; but having before me a chance 
edition — printed 'at Shakespeare's Head, over against 
Katherine Street in the Strand, MDCCXXVI'— I 
looked into it to see what the Spectator might say of 
Monaco. I regret to say that he says so little, and 
that little is but quotation from the classics. We 
have some ' rough passages,' not in the style, for that 
is all serene, but in his December voyage to St. Remo. 
Having observed several persons on the Riviera, ' with 
nothing but their shirts, and without complaining of 
the cold,' and noting the palm-trees, he sailed for 
Genoa; but adverse winds compelled him to lie by 
for two days. 'The captain thought the ship in so 
great danger, that he fell upon his knees and confessed 
himself to a Capuchin who was on board. But at 
last, taking advantage of a side wind, we were driven 
back as far as Monaco ! ' He then quotes Lucan's 
description of the harbour, not omitting the stormy 
part of it, but adds scarcely a descriptive word of his 
own. He translates Lucan into verse : — 

' The winding rocks a spacious harbour frame, 
That from the great Alcides takes its name ; 
Fenced to the West and to the North it lies ; 
But when the wind in Southern quarters rise, 
Ships, from their anchors torn, become their sport, 
And sudden Tempests rage within the Port.' 

But there is no association with Monaco so attractive 
as that which connects it — not with Hercules, or, as 
Virgil does in the verses heading this chapter, with 
Caesar — but with a fair, good, sainted Christian woman. 
Such an association proves its nobility by a higher 
than imperial charter, compels our reverence, and does 
much to redeem it from its bad fame as an elegant 
gambling resort. It is the story of Devote, a beautiful 



The 7nartyred Christian virgifi Divote. 59 

and spiritual virgin of Corsica, who clung to the 
religion of our Saviour through all the Pagan perse- 
cutions. Her purity of life, her self-abnegation, her 
firmness when urged on pain of death to deny her 
faith and bow before the deities of Rome, would 
make her sainted in any calendar. She was ordered 
to execution by the Roman magistrates of Corsica. 
In dying, she committed her soul to the Saviour, and 
in the article of death a dove was seen to ascend from 
her mouth to the sky. Some Christians took her 
body, bore it to a bark, and sailed with it toward 
Africa. She appeared to them, and persuaded them 
to take the body to that place whither the dove should 
fly from her mouth on the voyage. This proved 
to be Monaco, and they followed her direction ; bore 
the body to Monaco, and buried it near where now 
is the Church of St. George ; and there it remains. 
In ^-iew of the licensed hells of the principality, one 
would think it would hardly rest here in peace ! 



( 6o ) 




CHAPTER IV. 

CORSICA AFAR AND NEAR, 

Is this the man of thousand thrones, 
Who strewed our earth with hostile bones ? 
And can he thus survive ? ' 

Byron's ' Ode to Bonaparte.' 

ORSICA!' 'Corsica!' 'L'ile de Corse!' 
These and other Uke exclamations sprang 
to the lips of many visitors at Monaco, 
in the afternoon of February, 1869, while 
the writer was sojourning in that little realm. The 
occasion was the uprising of Corsica from the bluest 
of blue seas. To our vision the island was nigh, 
but in fact it was a hundred miles away. Our point 
of view was the far-famed, if not ill-famed, Casino. 

Certainly, the hundred gamblers of both sexes — 
some of whom were princesses, and some of the 
de^ni-monde ; some English millionaires, and some 
Russian nobles — were all intent on the rouge et 
noir until the cry went up, ' Corsica !' ' Corse !' from 
the windows of the Casino, where a company were 
gazing seaward. A rush, a lifting of the hands and 
eyelids, exclamations of delight ; and soon Corsica 
is forgotten by the gambling throng. Not so by 
the writer. He resolved to enter upon, pedis possession 
the promised land. 

I have said that the isle which we saw was over 
a hundred miles off. From the French coast it is 
only ninety ; but the grand mountain range which 
we had seen was distant 120 miles. Its base was 



The mountains visible from Monaco, 6i 

concealed below the horizon. The sphericity of 
the earth sinks about 3000 feet of Corsica from 
the eye. Therefore, in order to obtain a view of the 
Corsican coast, with its serrated ridge of mountains 
on the extreme edge of the sea, you must 'rise 
to the occasion' by an ascent either in a balloon, 
or to the higher points of the Maritime Alps — at the 
back of Nice, Mentone, Cannes, Monaco, or some 
other part of the Riviera. From the top of the 
Turbia or the Berceau, immediately behind Mentone, 
and to which the imperturbable donkey makes his 
adventure daily, the coast itself of Corsica may be 
seen when the isle is visible. Below, on a fair day 
and under favourable conditions, are seen the higher 
inland peaks of Corsica, Monte Rotondo, Monte 
D'Oro, Monte Cinto, and others, ranging from 8000 
to 9000 feet high. 

The newspapers of the Riviera were full of admira- 
tion for the splendid view we had enjoyed. The oldest 
inhabitant had not seen Corsica so plainly. Some 
even thought that they had seen through the island 
into Monte Christo, Dumas's pet, and some into Elba ; 
but these were enthusiasts, who have second sight ! 
Generally Corsica does not honour the continent 
with a view more than once a month ; and that 
too, most vividly, just after the sun rises. That 
orb, of course, is at first behind the granite moun- 
tains of the island. Being on the move, he sur- 
mounts them ; and lo ! they die out of our vision 
as soon as he rises above them. Still, even when Cor- 
sica is not seen from the continent, one may discern 
where it is. Clouds, by a law of their own, are 
anchored over the splendid mountains. They are as 
immoveable as if they were not vapour. There are 
conditions when mountains ' melt like mist and solid 
lands, like clouds they shape themselves and go.' 



62 Embarkation for Corsica. 

Here there is a reversal of this law of the poet and 
philosopher. The granite of eastern Corsica seems 
to have been frozen in fire, and unmelted by the ages. 
The clouds this evening as they are piled in grand, 
solemn, heavy, golden, orange and red masses, have 
all the moveless massiveness of a mountain's gravity. 
I do not know how it would impress others ; but if a 
New York citizen, with a dash of poetry in him, 
from the top of Trinity steeple, or higher, could 
get a glimpse of the White or Alleghany Moun- 
tains, or an Englishman from Dover cliffs could dis- 
cern Mount Rosa or Blanc, the effect could not be 
more mysterious or charming, especially if those 
mountains were tipped or streaked with silver snows ! 
It is this charm or mystery that prompted me 
thitherward. But, being under medical care, I had 
to obtain medical consent. On consulting my physi- 
cian, and afterwards our companion in travel, Dr. 
Henry Bennet, he at once gave consent. In fact, if 
you will read his book on 'Winter in Southern 
Europe,' you will see that Corsica, as a health station, 
or sanitarium, had already been observed by him on 
his own travels. What deductions he makes from 
his observations, the reader will perceive by the 
perusal of his volume. But of this hereafter. Enough 
that we had our doctor's cheerful advice. With it he 
gave us many letters to medical friends at Ajaccio, 
Bastia, &c., and, all alive to the trip, we started from 
Mentone for Monaco, where we took the cars in the 
afternoon for Nice. At seven in the evening we 
were aboard the steamer ' L'Industrie,' ready to plough 
toward that isle where Ulysses once found a harbour 
— where Seneca found his exile so irksome — where 
the European world found Napoleon, and — to descend 
from the great to the small — where a beautiful 
morning, in early March, found the writer. 



The Corse tongtte mixed Arabic and Italian. 6^ 

Corsica is out of the route of European travel. It 
has not been written up or down. It is one of 
Bayard Taylor's 'Bye Ways' of travel. The very 
fragrance of the isle — the product of its uncultivated 
lands — has preserved it from the curiosity and van- 
dalism of common travel. A few Americans, a few 
English, and a few French, on business, or for sport- 
ing, or health, have come to Corsica within a year or 
so ; but their sojourn is confined to Ajaccio, or to a 
race across the island in a diligence to Bastia. As 
it takes twenty-four hours to cross the island, the 
tourist confines himself to gazing out of his coupe 
or sleeping through the romantic and variegated 
mountain and coast scenery. 

I am afraid that I cannot adequately convey my 
impressions of this island. I must content myself 
with a few pictures of the land and people, not 
omitting some of the experiences of travel and some 
historic associations. 

First, to get here. We found a neat and dashing 
steamer ready for us at Nice on Wednesday for its 
weekly visit to the island. The sun was going down 
over the range of the Estrelles, near Cannes, as we 
clambered up the gangway. Two ladies were along 
with me. Between us three, however, we commanded 
four languages — English, French, German, and Italian. 
The Italian was altogether the most useful. The 
people on the Corsican mountains leap to hear it 
from a stranger. It is indispensable in Corsica. The 
Corse tongue is very near Tuscan. It is mixed Arabic 
and Italian. It is a patois, but an Italian can com- 
prehend it. A strange-looking gentleman, with broad- 
brimmed hat, knee breeches, and long dark robe, 
accompanied us in our boat from the shore to the 
steamer. Who was he ? He talked French, looked 
like a Greek priest, and acted like a gentleman. I 



64 Near view of Corsica from the sea. 

had a note to the Bishop of the Enghsh Church of 
Gibraltar. I wonder if it be he. I make bold to 
ask. He is happy to say that his church is founded 
on that rock ; but his diocese runs to Constantinople. 
He is about to go to Corsica, where a church of his 
persuasion is about to be inaugurated. He proves 
an agreeable companion. We need some cheer. The 
rain begins to dampen the deck before we sail ; but 
soon the stars appear, the moon struggles through 
the clouds ; the dark mountains above us on the shore 
lose some of their gloom. The clear obscure of the 
night is gilded by the glancing lights from the long 
line of gas jets along the Promenade des Anglais at 
Nice. Further out, as we enter upon the open sea, 
the glaring and meretricious lights of that bold, but 
not big nation of Monaco, are reflected upon the 
waves and broken into myriads of sparkles. Soon the 
terrestrial lights give way to the celestial luminaries, 
and we give way to sleep. 

We awake in the morning at seven, after a nap 
of twelve hours, within an hour of the north-west 
coast of Corsica. We are opposite to Calvi ; but our 
vessel, for nautical reasons, to avoid the rough sea, 
hugs the coast. It thus gives us a near view of its 
crested white mountains, the macchie covered land, 
the chestnut, olive, and orange-clad valleys and hills, 
and the wonderful fringe of white breakers foaming 
among the rocky indentations, whose peaks are deco- 
rated with the old Genoese towers. At first the island 
reminded me of the Archipelago of Greece. It 
looked so nude and rocky — destitute and deserted. 
The scenery was thoroughly Alpine, back from the 
sea. The interior seemed one magnificent range of 
mountains. No plains, no marshes were visible. Cor- 
sica has two ranges of mountains. You never lose 
sight of its primitive granite. It begins near the 



The Sangui7taires. 65 



coast at Isola Rossa, and bounds upward 8000 feet, 
and ' keeps it up/ longitudinally, the length of the 
island, which is 150 miles. The eastern range is 
secondary and calcareous, like the mountains along 
the coast of France and Italy. The granitic range 
has not been washed away to any perceptible extent. 
Its grand, grotesque, and imposing forms — twisted 
and writhed by the fires which heaved them from 
the ocean — are to-day as they were countless ages 
ago. The eastern range has been worn. Some allu- 
vial and unhealthy plains have resulted. Brackish 
ponds and deadly malaria are incidents of the autumn 
on the eastern side of the island, but not the western. 
Hence, the western side has been selected by eminent 
physicians for health stations. The mountains, espe- 
cially around Ajaccio, shelter that city ; and the weak 
in throat and lung find relief, and often cure. 

But I anticipate. We have not yet landed. Nor 
yet have we reached Ajaccio. First, we must pass 
within thy gates, Sanguinaires ! In which apostrophe 
I allude to two or three, or more picturesque islands, 
almost mere rocks, called Sanguinary (wherefore called 
I cannot guess), which guard the outer harbour. 
These rocks are neither red nor bloody, but grotesque 
and brown, and were under a white veil as we ap- 
proached. The sea covered them with the finest spray 
from the breakers, which howled among their caves, 
and hallooed, over their sides. Passing between them 
the sea is calm at once, as if by magic, and the air 
is balm. The fine bay of Ajaccio is spread out to the 
view. It is surrounded on every side by mountain 
ranges. Many parts are snow-covered, and their 
sides checkered by shade and sun. There are few 
houses or villas to be seen. The bay reminds me 
of the bay of Naples. Others say, it recalls Lugano, 
in Switzerland ; and some, that it reminds them of 



66 Saying of Napoleon on the Perfitme of Corsica, 

Irish scenery. I cling to Naples as the best known 
portraiture of the features of the bay. If the shores 
were not so desolate the resemblance would be more 
striking. The air was balm ; not alone, because the 
exposure was to the south-west, and the bay was so 
inland as to be protected from the mistral or sea 
breezes ; but because the atmosphere was freighted 
with the perfume of the mountains. Will my readers 
in New York, which is on tfie same parallel of latitude 
as Corsica, believe that here, at 42° north latitude, 
the very weeds are the fragrant flowers of the New 
York conservatory ! The very scrubs are the sweet- 
scented shrubs of the lady of the Fifth avenue ! Even 
the winter air is redolent with a burden of lemon, 
orange, and myrtle aroma, for which Arabia has no 
parallel in summer, and the mind of the stranger 
no conception till he inhales it. Do you remember 
what Napoleon said, from his rocky island prison of 
St. Helena ? ' A Vodeur seule j.e devinerais la Corse^ 
les yeux fermSs^. Now, as I write, in the afternoon, 
in a villa with open window, with a gentle breeze blow- 
ing across the bay from the sea, and towards Corte, 
the realization of Napoleon's words is faithful to 
satiety. The heraldic bearing on the shield of Corsica 
once was a Saracen's head, with eyes bandaged. It 
seems as if there were here such an affluence for one 
sense, that sight was superfluous. Besides, we have 
nightingales in plenty, whose song is fragrance to the 
ear. 

As we ploughed up the bay, we asked one of the 
passengers the question asked by many a stranger 
before: 'What are those beautiful little houses, so 
oddly made, lining the shore ?' 'These are the villages 
of the dead.' The dead lived in these towns, as an 
Irish friend afterwards remarked about these mor- 
tuaries. Cemeteries there are none, or but few. These 



Repulsive Funeral Custom, 67 

few are not attractive to the living ; hence these 
private burial houses. The funeral custom of the 
public cemetery here is repulsive. The grounds are 
poorly kept. The graves are in the form of long 
trenches, to be filled up from time to time. The 
coffin is brought into an adjacent church. A crowd 
attends, with one or two priests ; the latter utter a 
few words, and go off. The coffin is then hurried, on 
a trot, Mahomedan fashion, to the grave — the crowd 
following. It is dropped in a hurry. A rush to the 
town, with great disorder and noise. So concludes 
the ceremony. No wonder that private burial is 
preferred. While among the mountains we found 
many of these odd places of domestic sepulture. Each 
family which can afford it, has a private mausoleum. 
It is nothing here to decorate the little garden around 
the tombs. The cypress, evergreen flowers, and 
shrubs, which no winter strips of foliage or fragrance, 
by their own energy of vegetation, and without even 
the care of the bereaved, preserve in picturesque 
and perpetual sweetness, mournful memories of the 
loved aiid lost. 

But our vessel moves on. Soon we are at the place 
of landing. There are no docks. The anchor is 
dropped. A throng of boats surrounds the vessel. 
It seems as if there were 500 people on the shore — 
an eager group. We are the objects of scrutiny 
and sympathy; the sympathy has some reference to 
baggage ; for while no carriage, dray, or wheeled 
vehicle, not even a wheelbarrow is visible, there are 
plenty of lazy-looking people ready to carry, for a 
sou or so, our ' traps ' to the hotel. We walk up 
the leading street, past the allegorical monument 
upon which Napoleon I. stands in marble, draped in a 
toga. Around it are some score of women. From 
the spouting mouths of the four lions at its base 

F 2 



68 Bonapartism the Genius of Ajaccio. 

they are filling their earthen jars with water. They 
form quite a classic group of antiques, but would look 
better if they were not so dirty. We have but little 
leisure to admire them in their mandiles and fan- 
dettas, as the immediate question is — who shall get to 
the best hotel first. Accommodations are limited, and 
on steamer days especially so. 

One thing the stranger, even on the most super- 
ficial glance, will notice — not the street, with double 
rows of orange-trees for shade ; not the little rail- 
road, carrying stone to the shore for the jetty in pro- 
cess of construction, followed by a small boy to blow 
a horn — but the signs, emblems, and influences 
pervading the town. Bonapartism is the presiding 
genius of the place. Ajaccio would not be accounted 
much, except for its bay and healthy situation, were 
it not the birthplace of the most remarkable man 
of the past thousand years. It has a fine gallery of 
paintings ; but that is a gift of one of the Napoleonic 
connections. Cardinal Fesch. It has a beautiful marble 
chapel ; but that is a mausoleum of the Napoleon 
family. It has an old cathedral, where Madame 
Letitia was accustomed to take the young Bonaparte 
to mass. It has some fine villas ; but chief among 
them, which we visited, was that of the Princess 
Bacciochi (still Bonaparte), which that lady, just dead, 
has bequeathed to the young Prince Imperial. All 
the streets bear Napoleonic names. The cafes, also, 
are named after Jerome, or some others of the family. 
There is a street called after the King of Rome. 
But chief among the souvenirs of the great family is 
the house w^here Napoleon was born. It is situated 
next door to a hatter's. I looked in upon the hatter 
at his work ; looked through the grated windows 
of his workshop, and there, unconscious of his en- 
nobling proximity, he was beating away at his trade. 



Napoleo7is Birth-place aiid Birth-day. 69 

The house where so many princes of the earth first 
drew breath is next door to a hatters! 'We shall 
all meet at the hatter's,' saith the homely proverb. 
But let me be more precise. 

Passing up a narrow street in the heart of the town, 
you come upon the Place Letitia ; then upon a little 
open spot, ornamented with tropical palms, shrubs, 
and flowers. This plot was opened and enlarged by 
the mother of Napoleon, by tearing down a house 
in front of her own. She used the house on the left 
side of the plot as a stable and coach-house. The 
woman who showed us the premises was formerly a 
waiting-woman of Caroline Murat. She lives in the 
old stable opposite the hatter, which is neatly fitted 
up. Upon the front of the Bonaparte mansion there 
is an inscription, that within this house Napoleon 
was born. It gives the date, the ijth of August; 
so that if tablets of stone are evidence, as they often 
are, according to Greenleaf, of old dates and events, 
here is a record to satisfy enquiry, or rather to pro- 
voke more discussion as to the great day, so soon to 
be celebrated on its hundredth round. The house 
is large — four stories — and of stone, evidently one of 
the best of its day. It is hardly excelled, even yet, in 
Ajaccio. It shows that the family were ' well-to-do ' 
in the world. In fact, Madame Letitia's family (the 
Ramolinis) were rich, and had many estates upon the 
island. When she died, she bequeathed her furniture 
to members of her family. The present Emperor 
has collected most of the articles, and replaced them 
in the house which he now owns. Our conductress 
told us what each object meant, and whose room 
this, that, and the other was. The second floor was 
Madame's bed-chamber, dining-room, and salon, — 
quite commodious. The floor above it was devoted 
to the sons. Here was Napoleon's room and his 



70 Madame Letitia ' surprise a tEglise, 



bureau ! Yonder, Joseph's ! There Jerome's ! The 
floor above that for the boys was occupied by the 
daughters. There was a very small terrace looking out 
from the reception-room, with flowers in pots — all in 
bloom. This reception-^room contained ^y^ little 
square mirrors, as high as your head, running down 
each side ; three other mirrors near them, and one 
grand mirror at either end of the room. In fact, we 
counted some fifteen mirrors in this room* The Na- 
poleons were well provided with looking-glasses. We 
cannot say as much for any of the other houses we 
have seen. What effect these mirrors had upon the 
young Napoleon,, I will leave, with other reflections 
to the reader. Two brackets for wax tapers hung 
below each little mirror. The ceiling was ribbed. 
It had been newly plastered, with some little effort at 
fresco. The mother's portrait, very finely executed, 
hung over her dressing-stable. It presents her as a 
splendid woman. The cabinets were inlaid with 
every-coloured marble, and very antique. Some rare 
objects sent by Napoleon from Egypt were displayed. 

But the chief attraction was the bed on which Na- 
poleon was born ! It is a wooden, rickety affair ; near 
it is the sedan-chair of the Madame. It is well- 
known ; — well I will put it — politely— in French, that 
—Madame Letitia surprise a I'Sglise par les douleurs 
de renfantement le \^ A out, I'jG^, fut rapportSe a 
son domicile ! In this very sedan the mother of the 
great Emperor was borne from the church, and on 
this very couch, the ' little corporal ' first drew his 
breath. From this bed to St. Helena; from the 
capitol to the Tarpeian Rock ! Fill up the gap — 
Arcoli, Austerlitz, Waterloo ! Here, in this house^ he 
passed his time, playing at soldiers with his fellows, 
and mourning because he had no moustache — till, at 
the age of fifteen, he entered the Military School 



NcipoleojLS Last ThoicgJits about Corsica. 7 1 

at Brienne. He returned home for vacations, and 
mixing his young ambitions with the daily round of 
boyhood pleasures and walks, he, at the same time, 
imbibed from the peculiar characteristics of the Cor- 
sicans, those feuds and feelings, which his grand, 
gloomy, and marvellous after-life illustrated. 

Just above where we lodge, at the end of the 
avenue — where, if you go, you may probably see a 
company of lively ladies and gallant officers playing 
croquet — is a grotto (of which I present a sketch) 
formed by boulders, and surrounded with foliage, and 
musical with birds, celebrated as the favourite study- 
spot of the young Napoleon. The grotto commands 
a beautiful view of the bay and the snovv-clad moun- 
tains around. From it can be seen on a clear day, 
the island of Sardinia. Gardens of oranges, from 
which we are permitted to pluck at pleasure, cover 
the slopes near. Hedges of cactus (cactus opuntia) 
— cactus piled on cactus ; the famous macchie, so 
sweetly scented ; the arbutus, the myrtle, the olive, 
and every kind of tree and colour of liower, grow in 
the air of winter. It was within the circle of such 
influences of sun, sky, land, and water, that the young 
Napoleon formed his plans of life. How many of 
them failed, or how many of them were realized, we 
can onlv guess. One thing remains to be said : that 
in the hurly-burly of his active career he never forgot 
Corsica. He always intended to do more for her 
than he did. His last thoughts were about his native 
isle. 

In Ajaccio, you cannot escape the Napoleonic im- 
pressions. They follow you whenever you go out ; 
and they enter with you into every public place. If 
you go to the Hotel de Ville, which contains a library 
of historical interest — at least to the Bonapartes — 
you will see the picture of a lawyer — Carlo Maria 



72 Carlo Bonaparte and Letitia Ramolino, 

Bonaparte. He is a handsome man, of elegant appear- 
ance, iit to be the bridegroom of the belle of Ajaccio 
— Letitia Ramolino ; and lit — if any body is fit — to 
be the father of Kings and Queens. Go into the 
College Fesch — named in honour of Letitia's half- 
brother — and you will find the pictures once owned 
by the Cardinal, and presented by Joseph Bonaparte 
as lately as 1842 ; and in the library, a bronze of the 
Cardinal. If you would see the tombs of the Cardinal 
and his half-sister, you will go to Rome for them in 
vain. They were removed to Ajaccio. The remains 
of Madame Letitia repose, beside her brother, in the 
vault of the chapel in the Rue Fesch, near the College. 
The Cardinal began the chapel, and Napoleon IIL 
finished it in 1859. It is a stone building in the 
form of a cross, with a dome over it. The inscription 
in Latin over the tomb of Letitia is ' Mother of 
Kings ! ' Everywhere in Ajaccio, among living and 
dead. Napoleon the Great appears. He may have 
been the Prometheus of Byron's ode, chained to the 
rock, or like that Tartar prince, caged ; or so much 
worse than Charles V., that he took a throne, instead 
of abdicating one; but Byron's muse failed in her 
vaticination. Whatever the premises may be, the 
conclusion is not verified : — 

' If thou had'st died as honour dies, 
Some new Napoleon might arise.' 

A group of kings may be seen upon the fine, 
roomy, open plaza, called the Place Bonaparte. Here 
the first object that arrested my attention, after I 
emerged from the hotel, on our arrival, was an eques- 
trian bronze statue of Napoleon — colossal and grand. 
At the four corners of the monument — on foot and 
below^ and draped in Roman vestments, are his four 
brothers. They all look off to the sea, as if they 



Fierce Democratic Speech of Prince Napoleon. 73 



but not of, Corsica; as if their musings 
were pre-occupied with other lands. This fine me- 
morial was dedicated by Prince Napoleon in 1865. 
He made, on its inauguration, a fierce democratic 
oration, which gave offence, as it was alleged, to the 
Emperor. 

In glancing at Ajaccio, I have thus far written the 
impressions of one or two days' sojourn only. I shall 
return to it again after our visit to the interior, whither 
I am about to take the reader in the next chapter. 



( 74 ) 




CHAPTER V. 

AMID THE MOUNTAINS OF CORSICA— A STRANGE, 
WONDERFUL LAND. 

' By anemone and violet 

Like mosaic, paven : 
And its roof was flowers and leaves 
Which the summer's breath enweaves, 
"Where nor sun, nor showers, nor breeze, 
Pierce the pines and tallest trees. 

Each a gem engraven. 
Girt by many an azure wave.' — Shelley's ' Isle.' 

jT will require a long chapter to describe, even 
compactly, the views, experiences, and im- 
pressions of our four days' visit amidst the 
mountains around Vico, Corghese, and 
Evisa — amidst rain and snow, sunshine and cloud ; 
among, forests of pine and iJe^ (liv^-oak) ; everywhere 
the everlasting evergreens and efflorescence of Corsica. 
A strange, wonderful land — half Oriental ; tropical, 
yet with snow-clad mountains ; so wild in parts that 
the wild boars and wild sheep are hunted in forests 
where the pines grow 30 feet in circumference ; so 
tame and sweet in parts that even the macadamized 
roads are covered with the sweetest and smallest 
clover ; so sea-surrounded that at no point do you 
escape the impression of the mobile element ; so grand 
in its mountains that the Alps scarcely surpass it in 
magnificence. 

I am free to confess, that during this fascinating 
journey I forgot that my search was for Sunbeams. 
Reaching a wintry altitude^ it seemed that the nearer 



d 




u 

U! 

K 
O 



>. 



Perfect French Engineering in Corsica. 75 

I approached to the Sun, the less I saw of His 
Majesty. The truth is, that the month of April or 
May is the best month for the mountains or interior 
of the island. No invalid should travel here in the 
month of March. As our driver said, March is 
the month for caps and bonnets, and she changes 
therri daily with the fickleness of female caprice. It is 
the only month, however, which tries the perennial 
geniality of this climate. The mountains now seem 
full of clouds, which are a reservoir of rain and snow. 
The clouds above them may hang heavily ; when all 
at once the sky and sea are changed, and we have the 
air and shine of an English June. One thing, how- 
ever, never occurs to mar our enjoyment : it is not 
cold; never, unless you ascend very high into the 
snow-mountains. That you can do ; for the roads are 
excellent to every part of the island. 

Before we start, it is best to procure one of the 
departmental maps, issued by authority of the French 
Government. The French engineering is nearly per- 
fection. Not only so because of the roads which the 
engineers construct, but because they publish their 
labours in such perfect style and with such abundant 
detail. Arrondissements, communes, post routes, 
bureaux of letters, big towns and little towns, Roman 
and Moorish ruins, chateaux, the canals of irrigation, 
and even the population ; but, most useful of all, 
the routes are marked with precision. The Corsican 
roads are of three kinds : the imperial, the depart- 
mental, and forest roads. There is not much differ- 
ence in the quality of these roads, strange as you may 
think it. The English roads are not better. Except 
here and there where the big timber carts have rutted 
them, they are superlatively excellent. The Central 
Park Commissioners of New York, with all their 
police, taste, vigilance, and skill, have not made any 



76 ^ Manger le Cocker' 

better roads for equestrians or carriages than we found 
in the very midst of mountains here, four or five 
thousand feet above the sea. This is owing mostly 
to good engineering. It is due somewhat to cheap- 
ness of labour and proximity of good stones for 
macadamizing. The water is drained skilfully and 
runs harmlessly from or under the road. 

Yet, with all this expense and care, comparatively 
few, as yet, use these roads. On a ride of four days 
we met not one carriage. The diligence goes ; don- 
keys and women — (excuse me for the connection) — 
bearing burdens, and the famous tough, ill-kept, but 
spirited Corsican pony — these are to be met with ; 
but it is such a rarity to meet a carriage that when 
we pass through the mountain towns all the population 
turn out to see ! 

This may account for the trouble we had in 
obtaining a conveyance. At Ajaccio, but one man, 
Jean, had carriages, and he had but few. These were 
already let. We found what is called a breck at 
another unpretentious stable — owned by one Rivies. 
It is a cross between a small uncovered omnibus and 
a jaunting car. We paid for it twenty francs a day, 
and had to ' eat the driver.' When I proposed, in a 
horrible way, manger le cocker^ that humble person 
standing near — Caggini, by name — was not merely 
pale, he was paralysed ! He thought it was an 
American custom. To give drink — -pottr boire — is a 
common and rather expensive custom all through 
France ; but we had improved on it. I do not com- 
plain, however, of our vehicle, and I found Caggini 
very brisk and serviceable. We had a very pleasant 
day to start, all Sunbeams. Our first route lay along 
the sea from Ajaccio to the north. We took the 
Imperial route, which has nearly been completed 
round the island. It has only one gap, soon to be 



The Sheep easily separated from the Goats. 77 

filled. We started on the rise from Ajaccio. As we 
gained the heights, we perceived a good deal of culti- 
vation. Besides the sheep-pastures, there were patches 
of bright green, which we find to be flax, and vine- 
yards in plenty along the terraced mountain sides. 

The sheep are nearly all black ; one white for 
twenty of that hue. The white are small, and have 
coarse wool ; the black have a sort of hair — much 
used here and elsewhere for mattresses. Their hair is 
long and nearly straight. I might call them a little 
" conservative." The mountains and valleys were 
dotted with them as thickly as Carlyle's page with 
capital letters. A shepherd, here and there, was on 
the watch, with his dog. Occasionally he would hurl 
a stone at the flock to remind them that they were 
under supervision. Goats were nearly as common as 
sheep ; but they looked and acted more like vagrants. 
Indeed, the goats have much to answer for in Corsica. 
They have spoiled the land. They live around 
among the macchie or brushwood, and are voracious 
of every green thing. They furnish nearly all the 
milk. A cow here is a curiosity. We like the goat's 
milk, especially the broccio, or curd boiled in sweet 
milk. Among the picturesque objects to be met with 
upon the roads in the mountains, are the processions 
of country women, bearing upon their heads large 
boards covered with little dainty baskets, in which the 
broccio is moulded and borne to market. It was not 
uncommon to see the milk dripping, in unctuous 
rivulets, from the baskets about the handkerchief-clad 
heads of the bearers. 

Have I mentioned the moufliins, or wild sheep ? 
They are very common, and have been much hunted. 
They are larger than the tame sheep. They are 
more like deer than sheep. Their horns are thick 
and bend forward. You can easily separate them in 



78 Women 'a califourchon^ 

your judgment from the goats. They are thoroughly 
conservative — as to hair ; but their colour is mixed — 
brown, black, and white. They have a frizzled mane, 
and an eye like that of Genius, quick and fine. They 
are hunted by dogs and men. When caught they 
are easily tamed, and becorne pets with the children. 
They are as timid as hares in the woods, and become 
as affectionate as dogs, when domesticated. They are, 
when caught young, turned over to the goat to feed, 
and they are not tender of their foster mother. They 
often suck with a dash of ferocity that draws blood 
instead of milk. Indeed, everything in Corsica has a 
wild and fierce style. The Vendetta has inoculated 
the animal life. 

On our upward way we perceived villages upon the 
mountains, perched high, like all the little towns on 
the Italian and French coast ; so high, that during the 
invasions of the Saracens, they were comparatively 
protected in their rock-bound strongholds. We meet 
on the road, occasionally, women carrying on their 
heads their burdens of broccio, wine, fruit, or faggots, 
and invariably knitting as they walk. Now and then 
they ride upon the donkey, and ride — will you believe 
it ? — ct calif ourchofiy astraddle. Indeed, I met, upon 
a donkey, a man riding upon a side-saddle and a 
woman behind him astride on the meek little bearer 
of burdens. Our upward route was splendid, having 
now and then entrancing glimpses of the sea, which 
was lashing itself against the rocks, and blanched with 
beauty. Alata on the left, — Appietto, farther on, and 
the almost unpronounceable Calcatoggia village, show 
that somebody does live hereabouts, though cottages 
and huts are scarce outside of the hamlets and- in the 
country. At last, after some dozen miles of ascent, 
we reach the chapel of St. Sebastian. Here we have 
a famous spot for sea views. We obtain a glimpse of 



Labouring Gangs of Lucchesi, 79 

the white-clad mountains on our right, into whose 
heart we are to penetrate, and whose glistening scenery 
beckoned us thither. There is one peasant living near 
the chapel. His hoiise is a jail-like, stony edifice. 
The smoke comes out of the windows and doors. The 
cactus is abundant. The ' proprietor ' is, as all pro- 
prietors are here, clad in cheap brown velvet cloth. 
He seemed utterly at leisure. The land is cut up into 
little patches, sometimes separated by stone walls or 
hedges of the macchie, but, on the whole, it looks 
desolate. The little dashes of green which smile as 
the sun glances upon them through the changing 
clouds, give some relief to the general desolation. 

As we wind our way round mountain sides and over 
the valleys and under the shadow of overhanging 
rocks, we discern, in cultivated places, workmen in 
gangs, either digging round the olive, making terraces, 
or working the soil for the vine ; or, what is very 
common, making holes in the ground to hold the 
rain, to assist the work of irrigation. Indeed, the 
vineyards, which furnish the full-bodied wines of 
Corsica, are everywhere perforated with holes. Every 
other hole has in it a labourer. As we go by, he rests 
upon his spade, and wiping the sweat from his brow, 
respectfully lifts his Phrygian cap, with a ' btton 
giorno^ If he were before the footlights he would 
make a capital personation, in attitude and costume, 
of the grave-digger in Hamlet. But who are these 
workmen ? Not Corsicans. The small ' proprietor,' 
who wears his velvet clothes, and owns a few chestnut 
or olive trees, or his flock of goats and sheep ; and 
his more wealthy neighbour, who has his vineyard or 
lemon grove in some sequestered valley, are not the 
workmen of this isle. These gangs of labourers are 
Lucchesi. They live in Italy. They come over to 
Corsica for a few months, make and save a few 



8o View from the Heights of St. Sebastian. 

hundred francs, and return to their homes. They 
work for two francs a day. In their industrial and 
economic migrations, they are hke our Chinese ; 
and are equally despised by their superiors. In fact, 
they are the only labourers of this land, so favoured 
by sky and sun, and so neglected by the ' pro- 
prietors.' What work the Lucchesi do 7iot do here, 
the women do. 

Before leaving St. Sebastian, the ladies of our party, 
not content with glances at the sea through the magic 
aerial mountain prospective so eulogized by Ruskin 
and so illustrated by Bierstadt, led me, not unwilling, 
along a steep track for a mile beyond the chapel on 
the road, to a point overlooking the coast and almost 
overhanging the wild foam beneath. There, amidst 
jagged and ragged rocks, ripped and torn by the mad 
elements from a dateless epoch, we enjoyed view upon 
view, 'splendour far sinking into splendour without 
end.' Far along the shore to the south, and reaching 
along the Gulf of Sagone to the north, even as far off 
as the Greek colony of Carghese (which we afterwards 
found lost no beauty by being near to it), the eye 
could see, in the clear air, made more clear by the 
bright cerulean of the water, all the indentations of 
this wonderful coast. The sea was not calm. It made 
me think of Tennyson's line : — 

' League-long rollers thundering on the shore.' 

The immediate surroundings of this romantic spot 
were beyond all expression wild and grand. At the 
extreme point of the promontory there was an amphi- 
theatre, resembling in form the Cirque or Oule, 
peculiar to the Pyrenees, except that the latter is a 
basin for water, while the former is as dry and warm as 
the rocks can be under winter sunbeams. The walls, 
and especially the varied shapes of loose and scattered 



A grand Granite Congress. 8 1 

rocks, give the impression at some distance of human 
handicraft, and even human beings. The semi-circle 
might, with no extravagance of fancy, be likened to 
a grand granite Congress. True, these petrified Con- 
gressmen were as silent as Congress is not. Their 
postures were rather stiff for eloquent gentlemen. 
Their heads — I speak with parliamentary respect, under 
the rules — were hard. We picked out of the group 
the notabilities. There was one half-boulder, half- 
granite sort of member, whom we all agreed was a 
general as much renowned in debate as in war — in 
discussion as in concussion. With all regard to the 
proprieties, I clambered on the top of this honourable 
member's bald head, and undertook, under the five- 
minute rule, to give him voice. The surf below 
bellowed its applause. The lizards, which were lobby- 
ing around, came out to see. An occasional goat looked 
down from the galleries of rock above and seemed to 
shake his head and beard in grave acquiescence. My 
time expired. Down came the gravel and down came I. 
The ladies called the previous question, which was 
'lunch,' and we were soon off to the chapel again. 
Thence, for the mountains, striking eastward for St. 
Andrea upon a forest or bye road. 

Even this road gave our Corsican ponies but little 
trouble. We reached the small village of St. Andrea ; 
and having bowed to the old curate standing before 
the church, we were greeted heartily by him in return. 
Learning that we were American, he tendered what we 
have invariably received in this island from the 
Catholic priests, the utmost of courtesy. They are 
as scholarly as they are urbane. Indeed it astonished 
us not a little, being such strangers, to receive such 
unbounded attention. ' Would we alight ? Would 
we enter his church ? What do we think of Corse ? ' 
He eulogizes the wine of St. Andrea. ' Would we do 

G 



82 Priestly Hospitality, 

him the honour to try it ? ' We did. Under the 
convoy of some twenty children who had gathered 
about us with inquisitive eyes, we drive through the 
little village, down a narrow street, so narrow that our 
hubs grazed the houses on either side, and are met 
by the curate and a delegation of his flock. One of 
the latter bears a platter with two bottles of wine and 
three glasses. The white wine is for the ladies ; the 
red — a full-blooded, spirited wine, emblematic of the 
fiery qualities of the Corsicans — -is for the gentleman. 
Healths to the priest ; to America ; to Corsica ; and 
blessings from the heaven above, so bright and so 
near ! May it ever be near to the venerable father ! 
Before we go, we desire to present something sub- 
stantial for the wine and kindness. Our douceur was 
offered to the curate : ' No, I offered the wine with 
my heart.' Then to the cup-bearer, ^Oh no, mon- 
sieur ! we are not poor.' Finally to the church we 
offered it, and it was accepted. With many kind 
farewells, we were again on our upward way. We 
meet one of the guards of the royal forests, gun on 
shoulder, and dressed in green. We talk with him. 
He will not drink. He is on duty. He looks quite 
like a picturesque forester. 

All along this route the sides of the road are white 
with a fringe of marguerites. The shrubs furnish a 
surfeit of perfume as evening comes. The bells tinkle 
upon sheep and goat in the valleys far below. Our 
afternoon is one oft-repeated exclamation ! Magni- 
ficent ! glorious ! We reach the chestnut groves ; 
but they alone are leafless. No winter sunbeams 
clothe their branches. Then the forests of ilex or 
evergreen oaks appear. These, like the rocks, are 
old, storm-worn, and twisted. Each one is a picture ; 
almost a grove of itself. 

It may not be amiss here to say a word about the 



Chestmit Diet and its Results. 83 

chestnut. It is the bane and the blessing of Corsica. 
It grows in the higher latitudes. It requires no care, 
as the olive does. It never fails to yield a crop. It is 
more plentiful on the eastern side of the island. In 
fact, there is on that side a circle of land, called 
Castagniccia, or chestnut country. There the people 
live almost entirely on chestnuts. Where the chestnut 
forests abound, a little olive oil, a little wine, a few 
figs, and sometimes a kid or a wild sheep complete the 
diet. To this chance food, the chestnut, picked without 
labour, may be attributed much of the improvident, 
lazy, and independent habits of the Corsicans. The dry 
chestnut is given as food to the horses. They like it. 
It is hard, but they grind it in their mouths as a sweet 
morsel. The people use it roasted sometimes, but 
generally made into flour. It is said that there are 
twenty-two dishes made out of the chestnut in Corsica ! 
The chestnut cakes we had at Cauro, from an old 
brigand hunter, were delicious and nutritious. They 
are baked in square, flat pans, and have the colour of 
our buck-wheat. When the Pisans, Genoese, and 
French undertook to subjugate Corsica, the ' Chestnut 
Boys ' beat them. Their rations cost little. Hemmed 
in by mountains and rocks, or hiding in caves, while 
other parts of the island succumbed to the yoke of 
the foreigner, the independent chestnut-eater was un^ 
subdued. It is not a new kind of food here. It is as 
old as the earliest traditions of the island. When 
^neas deserted Dido, and when his companion, 
Corso, a bad young man, from whom the island is 
named, eloped with Dido's niece, Miss Sico (hence 
Corse-Sico), and when the young people were followed 
hither by the irate brother of the bride, they cele- 
brated their honeymoon in a chestnut grove, had 
baked chestnuts for breakfast, chestnuts a la poitlet 
for dinner, and chestnut cakes for supper. The 

G 2 



84 Olives and Wild Olives. 

mother of Napoleon, it is known, had a dairy, when at 
Paris, for goats' milk and broccio. Doubtless the 
young and old Napoleons preserved this family affec- 
tion for the food of their native land. There is a 
good deal of fight in chestnuts. The brigands, who 
have hardly yet been exterminated, had a constant and 
ready supply of this home-made, belligerent aliment. 
They retired on it to their fastnesses and defied starva- 
tion and surrender. Perhaps the world is indebted for 
its Bonapartes — to chestnuts ! 

Above the region of chestnuts, is that of the live 
oak ; then the big larches, 1 70 feet high ; then the 
beech and birch ; and then the ever-during snows. 
In saying so much about the Corsican trees, it would 
be unfair to omit the olive. The tree does not grow 
here so large as on the Riviera coast, but it is very 
productive. If one tithe of the expense and time put 
upon the olive on the coast were bestowed on it here, 
the yield would be immense. The olive requires care 
and skill. These the Luchesi, who are mere labourers, 
do not give. All the care given to the olive is by the 
women. The olive requires water, and water here can 
be had only by directing it into reservoirs and thence 
to the roots of the trees. The olive is indigenous to 
Corsica. Birds bear the stones about the isle. These 
little olive-planters are almost as thick as the leaves 
amidst which they hide and carol. When these bird- 
borne seeds grow up they are called ' sauvage olives.' 
Not many years ago, the authorities took a census 
of the savages. They then numbered twelve millions. 
Two years ago Corsica showed at a fair 250 different 
specimens of olive oil. Were this land in America, 
with its sweet sun and energy of soil, as yet unworn 
by tilling, what a revenue it would bring! How 
many of these young ' savages ' would be civilized ! 
How they would set off — aesthetically speaking — with 



Little Work in the Corsican, 85 

their sombre green, the pale pink blossoms of the 
almond and the gorgeous pink of the peach ! How 
the rich verdure and golden fruit of orange and lemon 
would contrast with the foliage of that tree which has 
been made sacred by its memories of Olivet and the 
Holy Land ! How the endless macchie, the myrtle 
tree, the arbutus, with its red, ripe berry, and the 
laurustinus, would make this island a magnificent 
bouquet worthy to be laid before the Olympians ! 
Yet many of these fragrant and beautiful plants are 
being made into — charcoal. The bright, blue flags of 
smoke which float here and there upon the mountain 
sides, proceed from the carbon-makers. The heavy- 
laden carts we meet have their sacks full of black 
diamonds — for is not the diamond of carbon ? The 
cuisine of France, so celebrated, is lighted by the coals 
which are made from the most aromatic plants known 
to the sun and earth! In fact, the sunbeams I have 
searched for and found, afford, in one analysis, the 
fuel for cooking the elegant viands which furnish the 
entertainments of millionaires and kings ! 

There is little work in the Corsican ; but how much 
he might produce from his isle ! Out of the two 
millions and a quarter of acres of which Corsica is 
composed, it is estimated that only one six-kundredtk 
part is under cultivation ! In a land where the seasons 
are one — even as the sun is one — and where perpetual 
vegetable life is the law, the great body of the 250,000 
people of the island are content with chestnuts and the 
memory of Paoli, goat's curd and the glory of Napo- 
leon ! Instead of soldiers everywhere seen, we might 
see fewer goatherds, more shepherds, and still more 
labourers in vineyards and around olives. 

In the elder day, Rome was mistress here. There 
are innumerable traces of her power and greatness. 
Witness the ruins, coins, aqueducts, and theatres ! 



86 Heroes of Corsica. 



This isle, then, had 2,000,000 of people. Now the 
labourers are imported, and the French government 
pays ten dollars to help Corsica, while she gets one in 
revenue ! Yet the isle is pre-eminently rich in unde- 
veloped wealth. Not to speak of wines and woods, 
olives and oranges ; marbles and porphyry — precious 
stones, incident to its mountains — are here found in 
abundance. Lead is found at Barbaggio. But there 
are two things lacking — capital and enterprise. Now 
that Corsica is recommended by eminent physicians 
as a sanitary resort — not as the rival, but as an adjunct 
of the Riviera of Italy and France — travellers will 
come. They will observe. They will print their 
observations. Already my eminent friend, Dr. Henry 
Bennet, in his volume of ' Winter in the South of 
Europe,' has called attention to facts and deductions, 
showing the advantages of Corsica for its climatic and 
remedial influences in some pulmonary disorders. 
Corsica owes him a lasting debt of gratitude. 

Hitherto the island has been so far apart from the 
ordinary routes of travel that few have observed, even 
what has fallen under my eye. I think the very 
wildness, not to say, reputed inaccessibility, of these 
mountains, with their great forests and ready sub- 
sistence, have had much to do in forming the Corsican 
character. They have left Corsica fifty years behind 
its neighbours. The people are made hardy, inde- 
pendent, and defiant, but vengeful and lazy. But 
they were full of heroes. Delia Rocca, Sampriero, 
Paoli, Napoleon — a constellation — and, I may add 
(for I have seen him, yet alive, in his own garden, 
where his great General Napoleon planted lemons and 
wandered, when a boy). General Sebastiani, — these 
illustrate the martial daring and obstinate character of 
the Corsican. The people, naturally, are very proud 
of these names ; and but for Napoleon^ they say, their 



The Range of Monte Rotondo, 87 

soil would not now be a part of France. Indeed, it is 
common to hear them say : France did not annex 
Corse — Corse annexed France ! 

As I think over the salient points of the Corsican 
character, I forget that we are on the road. Night is 
coming on, and clouds and storms are gathering over 
the mountains above us. We are several hours from 
our destination. We are nearly 3000 feet above the 
sea, and have just in view the town of Sari. We 
meet a " solitary horseman." He is coming down the 
mountain by a by-path. We inquire of him our 
distance. " Three hours yet to Vico." He dismounts 
from his pony ; asks me to ride it. Without any 
bridle, only a rope halter ; with a saddle almost as big 
as the pony, and stirrups as big as the saddle, — I 
mounted. My companion is a "proprietor" — has a 
vineyard of two acres — is curious about America. I 
explain to him the homestead law. He looks incre- 
dulous. One hundred and sixty acres ! and all that, 
for next to nothing ! He shrugs his shoulders. He 
points out to me the mountains, by name. To the 
east is the range of Monte Rotondo. It is the highest 
in the island, 9000 feet ! It is surrounded by other 
mountains of less altitude. The mountains we are 
now ascending are covered with vegetation and forests. 
The range of Rotondo is made up of pinnacles, towers, 
castles, — as grand as anything I have seen in the Alps. 
If not, they seem so ; from our having such grounds 
of vantage for observing them. I ask my conductor 
of the pony, half playfully : " Why is it, that here on 
this mountain, we have oaks and chestnuts ; the laurus- 
tinus and purple cyclamen, ferns, and violets — foliage, 
flower, shrub, tree — all in such tropical profusion ; 
while right yonder, as if in reach of our voice, is rock 
and snow — desolation, sublime desolation?" He gives 
me for answer, with much seriousness : " It is the 



88 The Family of Pozzo di Borgo. 

caprice of the Eternal Father." An answer worthy of 
the scene. 

From the spot where I left my pony and his " pro- 
prietor," I counted fourteen conspicuous peaks, each 
white with a " diadem of snow." Above them hangs 
the threatening storm, in rolling masses of clouds. The 
air grows cool, then cold. The wind blows wildly. 
We are summoned to walk ; for our ponies have come 
to a halt. We can barely see the thread of our road, 
winding around and above and before us. Soon the 
lights of Vico shine afar like stars. The convent is 
reached and regretfully passed, for we had letters to 
those in charge of the institution. Soon we are at the 
hotel of Vico, bearing the imposing title of Hotel 
Pozzo di Borgo. It is named after one of the illus- 
trious families of Corsica, represented at Ajaccio, and 
very wealthy. The hotel itself is kept by one of the 
family. It is the same family whose escutcheon may 
be seen on a Genoese palace in Ajaccio. That palace 
was built by the famous diplomatist Carlo Andrea di 
Borgo. One of the Borgos, Carlo Maria, was, in the 
earlier days of the French Revolution, a rival of Joseph 
Bonaparte for popularity in Corsica. He was a lawyer ; 
quarrelled with the Bonapartes ; took the side of Paoli 
and the English against the French, and was made 
Procureur General under the brief English rule. As 
the Bonapartes rose he followed their star with true 
Vendetta hate. He entered the Russian service ; and, 
on the field of Waterloo, saw the fall of the rival 
family. He died, in 1842, very rich and distinguished. 
His relatives keep the hotel at Vico. It is curious that 
here there are the strangest contrasts of fortune and 
position in members of the same family. Some are 
very wealthy and eminent, some are hirelings and 
servants. The relationship may be recognised by both ; 
but the pride of the poor relations is indomitable, and 



Wild Boars and Bandits i7i the Black Forest, 89 

there is no intercourse. The mother of this Vico- 
Borgo family did the cooking and the daughters the 
work for the inn. The latter received us at the door 
of the bleak, three-story, stony hotel. The invariable 
handkerchief was upon their heads. We enter and 
find traces of refinement. A guitar is peeping from a 
closet and an embroidery frame is near. We are met, 
on entrance, not alone by the daughters, but by a 
bouquet of unpleasant odours. I cannot commend 
the fragrance of the Corsican hostelry as I do that of 
the macchie. Soon a fire greets us. These are not 
the radiant beams we are in search of; but they are 
comforting. We change our wet garments and prepare 
for our supper. The rooms are not plastered ; only 
flooring for ceiling. The windows have a touch here 
and there of fractured glass. The ventilation, for an 
invalid, is rather too free. The dinner comes : chicken, 
kid, beefsteak, no butter ; but the broccio does its 
office. We slept soundly, and were awakened in the 
morning by the crowing of chickens in the — hotel, 
and by the sound of the Sabbath bells reverberating 
through the valley from convent and church. The 
storm has gone by ; but the weather is only changing 
its cap. I must seek advice before venturing further 
into the mountains. 

We had started from Ajaccio for the great forest 
above Evisa ; the forest where the wild boar and the 
bandit, the great larches and the snows, hold their 
sway. We desired to see the celebrated trees, known 
as the King and Queen. This forest is some 4700 feet 
above the sea. It is known as Valdoniello, or the 
Black Forest of Corsica. Corsica is written down in 
ancient lore as shaggy and savage. Theophrastus, 
Strabo, and others, mention its rugged inaccessible 
nature, covered with dense forests, whose excellent 
timber has been celebrated in all ages. These classic 



90 



Dr, Multido, 



writers illustrate the Corsican character by the rugged- 
ness of these wildernesses. Although they attribute to 
the people a rude sense of justice (La Vendetta?) they 
regard them as wilder than the beasts and more un- 
tameable than their lands. The truth is the Corsicans 
did not make good slaves. It was impossible to 
accustom them to domestic habits. Their mountains 
and forests, which have survived all the changes of 
man, still remain to attest these ancient accounts. 
Immense pieces of timber, drawn by some half-dozen 
or more mules on some sort of " timber wheels," the 
timber dragging its long length upon the ground, 
were frequently met by us on our journey thither. 
They furnished impulses for us to go up still higher. 
We were told of one tree, already felled and hewn, so 
large that there was no team big enough or lumbermen 
enterprising enough to haul it out. It would bring 
2000 francs in Genoa. If only it could be taken to 
the sea, it would almost supply timber for a ship. A 
Maine or Michigan lumberman would not long hesi- 
tate to undertake the job. 

I had a note of introduction to the doctor of the 
village — Dr. Multido. I called on him. He was a 
young man of fine presence. He had been educated 
at Marseilles, was a native of Vico, and had just in- 
herited a fortune of 200,000 francs from his uncle, the 
curate. He gave us all the information we desired, 
and advised us to go as far as Evisa and to watch for 
the storm. After a hearty breakfast, during which we 
were waited upon by a fat girl who brought the " things 
in " on her head and who did not look as cleanly as 
her glasses and spoons, — after many good wishes from 
our hostesses and a purchase of their embroidery, and 
with many misgivings and amidst a crowd which must 
have comprehended half the town, — our driver snapped 
his whip at the ponies, and we were oiF. So was an 



Ascent to Evisa. 91 



old man off — his donkey. The driver, — as all Corsican 
and French drivers invariably do, — had cracked his 
silk into a series of snaps. These extravagant noises 
had frightened the old man's donkey, which had shied, 
and the old man had tumbled. The discourteous 
crowd roared at the misadventure. We stopped our 
" breck," helped the old man on, and, amid the re- 
newed adieux of the crowd, we dashed up the narrow 
streets and soon were again upon the mountains. 
March had indeed changed her cap. Our view was 
clouded and a drizzling rain began. While in this 
predicament, and still undaunted, a singular caravan 
approaches. Down the mountain, upon Sunday too, 
rush an excited throng! Forty men are drawing a 
cart, by ropes, on which is a splendid millstone ! A 
soldier is captain of the gang. A boy on a pony, 
decorated with ribbons, is dashing with them. Pell- 
mell they go, flushed either with wine or with the 
occasion. They are all in high glee, singing a rollick- 
ing song. Is this a merry-making of Ceres ? Perhaps 
the stone was cut in some place inaccessible to donkey 
or horse ? Perhaps it is a fete of the village handed 
down from the time of Dido's niece ? Far down the 
mountain, till the throng passes into the village, we 
hear the shouts come up ; and they are in strange 
dissonance with the Sabbath bells which peal below 
with sweet and sad vibrations. 

Our ascent was not easy. Our driver said that the 
horses were fatigued. Even chestnuts had not tempted 
them to breakfast. We descend from the breck, — to 
walk. We find, even here, violets and a flower — a 
delicate, purple, bell-shaped flower — nameless to us, 
but very sweet, growing in the very road. The wind 
blows coldly. The tall ilex trees wave like feathers in 
the blast. Magnificent groves — the vestibule to the 
great forest — now appear. We reach the top of the 



92 M, Carrara s Modest Bill of Fare. 

mountain in mid-afternoon ; and, facilis descensus^ we 
galloped like mad down into a valley; for though 
Evisa has to be reached by an ascent, still the last 
stage of the journey is down hill. We had a sight of 
a striped wild boar on the side of the hill, among the 
brush. So had the ponies. This sight helped the 
ponies more than the whip. The wind roared, and 
the ponies ran. The writer, being an invalid, in search 
of — sunbeams, — was huddled and hid under manifold 
wrappages by gentle hands. Our indefatigable driver 
braved the storm without overcoat and brought us 
safely through. We met but one human being on this 
route — a rough-visaged, brigandish-looking person in 
a coarse blanket, made dexterously into a capuchon, 
under which his diabolic face was hidden. He, too, 
was courteous, and showed us a short cut into Evisa. 
The town seemed deserted. The storm had driven even 
the chickens under the rocks and into the houses. 
Here we found the heartiest welcome from M. Carrara, 
who gave us his two best rooms, and his blushing 
wine, produced by himself in his vineyard at Porta 
by the sea. Although we had letters to M. Carrara, 
he had no advice that we w^ere coming. When we 
asked what he could give for dinner, he replied, " Un 
poulet, c'est tout." Well, chicken is not bad. We 
suggested a variety in the shape of an egg, or omelet. 
" Oh, yes." We further suggested : " What will you 
do for us with only one chicken. It is nothing." 
This urged him to an adventure on roasted chestnuts. 
A lunch on Porta wine, pure as the blood of a goddess, 
and roast chestnuts, bursting with white seams and hot, 
to a hungry traveller ! Can there be more cheer for 
hungry and storm-tossed travellers than we had of 
Carrara's poulet ? We shall see. The storm comes on, 
the hail beats, the snow fills this upper air. The 
sunbeams do not appear ; but what is more grateful, 



I 



Its appetising Realisation, 93 



the dinner does ! Here is our menu in the wilderness 
of Corsica : 

\st Course — Chicken soup. 

ind Course — Poulet bouilH. 

-^rd Course — Poulet au riz. 

\th Course — Poulet au champignons. 

t^th Course — Pommes de terre, fried in pig's fat. 

dth Course — Une creme des oeufs, (embryo chickens.) 

^th Coitrse — Broccio. 

%th Course — Dessert, raisins, grapes, almonds, chest- 
nuts, all fresh and racy of the soil. 

(^th Course — Une tasse de the. 

We crowed over that dinner — at least I did — and 
the ladies hid it away as a hen does her chicks under 
the wing. The females of our party discovered the 
china closet open and the neatest of china tea sets. 
We called for our tea in these delicate cups. But in 
Corsica they excel in chickens, but not in tea. They 
use cold water and only half draw the tea. We had 
been served with silver, too ! The curious female 
asked how many families could boast of china and 
silver ! " Only one or two in Evisa." Remember our 
host is of the great Borgo family ; and Evisa is a 
village of 1500 inhabitants. We discussed our forest 
trip ; but M. Carrara said it was impossible. We 
reluctantly gave it up. We were wise, for we learned 
afterwards that the forest roads were blocked with snow. 

When we rose in the morning the ground was 
covered and the mountains had on white caps. We 
waited till afternoon before we ventured further on our 
travel. It lay this time down toward the sea, to Porta 
and to sunbeams. This route was a continuous 
descent. The Corsican driver fairly rattles you down 
the mountain. His sure-footed ponies never leave the 
path. There seems to be no end to the tourniquets 
on this zigzagging road. Past beautiful cascades ; 



94 Extensive 'coup d'oeiV from Monte Rotondo, 

and pictures of green and brown — foliage and rock ; 
past the most tempting flowers — all alone, upon this 
road to-day, we push down, down, toward the coast. 
At last we reach Porta, and are welcomed by M. 
Ruelle. Here are to be found iron-works and saw- 
mills ; and here we saw droves of Lucchesi working 
immense gardens for the cedrat, a kind of large lemon 
used for confectionery in France. There was no other 
house in Porta but Ruelle's. He invited us to stay 
all night. Dechning that, we, however, accepted an 
offer of his rare wines. We walked from his house to 
the coast. The sea was tempestuous. It was driving 
in foam over the Moorish tower upon the rocky 
eminence at the mouth of the River. We cast our 
horoscope for the day, and concluded to move on to 
the Greek colony of Carghese. 

I would fain have rested here at Porta, if only to 
enjoy the luxury of the sky and air after our stormful 
experiences in the mountains. From the region of 
winter, where the hail dashed into our abode and 
startled chickens, cats, and human beings by its wild 
saturnalia, down, in a few hours, to the region of sun 
and olives, oranges, lemons, and all beauties of vegetable 
life, — this was worth a respite for a night, if only to 
indulge in the reflections incident to the vicissitudes 
of our one day. Think of it ! We had been within 
sight and almost within a few hours' reach of Monte 
Rotondo. From that point, as I am ' informed and 
believe,' on a good, clear day, the whole coast from 
Marseilles to Naples is visible ! To say nothing of a 
coup (Toeil of Corsica, Sardinia, Elba, Monte Cristo, 
and Caprera, the human eye can play from the Valley 
of the Rhone, with its grand and castellated mountains, 
over the tall white peaks of Provence and Savoy, 
capturing the strongholds of Toulon and Ventimiglia ; 
saunter amidst the orange gardens of the Duke of 



" The caprice of the Eternal Father r 95 

Vallombrosa, at Cannes ; surmount the Turbia Moun- 
tain behind Nice ; clamber, without aid of donkey or 
guide, through the defiles above Monaco and Mentone ; 
linger with Doctor Antonio and his love around the 
palm trees of Bordighera ; get a straight view of the 
leaning tower at Pisa ; catch a glimpse of the palaces 
and churches of superb Genoa ; and follow the Mari- 
time Alps, which hide the mulberries and vines of 
Lombardy, until the Valley of the Arno leads it by a 
silver thread through labyrinths of beauty to gorgeous 
Florence; thence the eye may roam to the Tiber, with 
a glimpse of the Pantheon which ' Angelo hung in the 
air of St. Peter's ;' and with the aid of a glass (I do 
not speak of the fiery Corsican vintage) rest upon the 
cones of Mount Vesuvius or float upon the richly- 
tinted and ever-sparkling waters of the Bay of Naples ! 
I do not know that this is. an overdrawn picture 
of the fancy. Monte Rotondo has been ascended. 
Judging from the account of that ascent, it is prac- 
ticable and will repay the exertion. The ascent is 
from Corte ; by a bridle-path up the roaring gorge of 
the Restonica, through quarries of black limestone and 
marble^ and into the granite region. Passing a few 
chestnut trees, the utter desolation which the peasant 
described to me as the caprice of the Eternal Father, 
begins. A few pines are to be found amidst the pre- 
cipices and turrets, and other rocky phantasies of the 
old fires. The clear waters of the Restonica, which 
washes the boulders almost as white as the snows, still 
guide you until a pine forest is found nearly at the 
source of the torrent. You cross the stream, ascend 
a gorge to the cabins of the goat-herds, where you find 
milk, hard bread, and kindness. Resting all night, 
you must be up and a-foot to clamber still higher over 
the loose stone ; thence by the Lake Rotondo and 
several other smaller lakes, into the region of snow. 



g6 Ascent of Monte Rotondo. 

The traveller is recommended to be at the summit by 
sunrise, as the whole island, 114 miles long^ — with all 
its sister isles and the coast from Civita Vecchia to 
Toulon — is to be seen. So says the account. This 
was not tested, however, by my actual observation. 
A priori^ it would seem reasonable. I ought not to 
write of what I did not see. I reserve the rest of my 
real mountain experience for the next chapter. 



( 97 ) 




CHAPTER VI. 
CORSICAN HISTORY — MOUNTAINS AND COAST 

EFORE starting again, on our mountain 
journey, it would be well to understand 
better the historic associations of the isle. 
The origin of the name, as I have given it, 
is rather apocryphal. But we are not to be too par- 
ticular where all is traditionary twilight. Another 
derivation is from Corsus, a son of Hercules. This 
is supposed, by some, to be a more ancient name than 
Cyrnos, the ordinary Greek appellation for Corsica. 
According to Fabius Pictor, Therapne was also a 
name given of old to the island ; indeed it was the 
oldest name. A traveller along the shores of the 
Western Mediterranean, as far even as the pillars 
which bear the name of the demi-god, must be 
struck with the incredible ' labours ' which Hercules 
is reputed to have performed. Not alone Africa and 
Spain, Gaul and Italy, but all the islands of the blue 
sea, have earliest associations with the divinity of Might 
and Muscle. Are those exploits an allegory ? Does 
it not require enormous physical strength to over- 
come the obstacles to the occupation of a new 
country ? What monsters were there not to exter- 
minate in the pre-historic time ? To Hercules, all the 
force and valour necessary to make the land habitable 
by man are attributed. For an unlettered people, in 
its nonage, this allegorical arrangement is convenient : 
superstitiously transferring to a single divinity the 
collective efforts of the founders of their race. It 

II 



^B Classical Associations of Coi^'sica. 

saves the making of books — which is ' a weariness of 
the flesh' — and, at the same time, honours the origin 
of the people with the divine ichor. Sallust poHtely 
derives Corsica from a Ligurian lady — Corsa. But I 
prefer the romantic derivation already given from 
Dido's darling niece. Africa, and its Phoenician colo- 
nists, had something to do with the earliest history of 
Corsica. The Phoenicians colonized the island. It 
took the Romans a century to eradicate them, and 
to capture it. They began their conquest 260 b. c. 
Marius founded Mariana and Aleria. 

Since my visit to the island, I have seen Mr. 
Murray's little Guide to Corsica. In it he devotes 
scarcely thirty pages to the island. In conversing 
about the matter, he regretted the meagreness of the 
volume. I would hardly presume to add to or sub- 
tract from anything in his valuable compilations ; 
but from one remark I dissent — that there are no 
other classic associations with the island, except those 
of the exiled grumbling philosopher, Seneca. I refer 
to the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, 
editjed by Dr. WilHam Smith, Part VI., under the title 
' Corsica.' From the score of authors quoted, we 
learn all about its origin, name, products, forests, 
honey, wax, fruits, and history. We learn that it 
was never really subjected to Rome, but was in 
chronic revolt. The names of Marius, Scipio, Otho, 
Belisarius, and Totila, are associated with attempts to 
conquer it, down to the advent of the Saracens ; but 
the most that was made out of the stubborn island 
was a little tribute in wax and honey. Thus we infer 
that the isle was ever fragrant. Again, we read that 
the Corsicans were longlived; and this is attributed 
to their use of so much honey. Again, this explains 
what we have seen here every step, the floral opulence 
of the island. 



Modern History of the Island. 99 

After Rome tried to hold the island, came Greek, 
Moor, and Goth. It is Africa and Spain over again, 
with their vicissitudes. A feudal aristocracy — called 
signori — sprang up in the middle ages. In the eleventh 
century Pisa obtained a footing ; then Genoa, jealous 
and belligerent, in the fourteenth century. The war 
between Pisa and Genoa for Corsica is illustrated by 
the biography of Delia Rocca. Until 1768 — the 
year before Napoleon was born — the Genoese held 
the island, but always under a protest, with a fight on 
hand. Out of these fights came the heroes of the 
island. Their line ended with the splendid name of 
Paoli. In 1768, Genoa sold Corsica to France. In 
1769, France defeated the Corsicans at Pontenuova. 
France held it, unsubdued in spirit, until 1786. The 
French Revolution came, and fused all elements, and 
to such an extent, that Corsica gave to France an 
Emperor — Napoleon ; and that too, from the family 
of a patriot, who was the Secretary of Paoli ! But 
why rehearse these events ? My duty is in the sunlight, 
and on the road. 

In closing the last chapter, we v/ere on our way 
down the west coast. We are making for La Plana. 
The road soon leaves the sea and ascends again. On 
this route we had splendid views of mountains and 
sea-coast. All the fauna and flora were to be found, 
the former petrified by fire or worn by water in the 
many-shaped rocks, and the latter dropped deftly into 
every nook and crevice where water ran or birds 
flew. One of the attractions of Corsica is its endless 
variety of scene. We have bird, beast, and creeping 
thing fashioned by the accidents of the volcano, which 
heaved this isle out of the blue sea into the blue sky. 
And after the fires had done their work, the waters 
gave forth genii to shape the rocks and mountains into 
statuesque and grotesque forms. Certainly Seneca 

H 2. 



I ) 



lOO 



Seneca s Aspersion of Corsica, 



either did not leave his tower at Calvi to go into the 
mountains, or else he was cross and unphilosophic, 
because of his exile : or else he was without refine- 
ment or taste for natural scenery. If not one or all 
of these, he would never have traduced Corsica so 
outrageously as he did in his de Consolatione. He 
was exiled under the reign of Claudius, and remained 
in Corsica six years. His tower is one of the monu- 
ments of the island. He even abused the water of 
Corsica. We know that in this he slandered the 
island. He described the island as utterly fruitless. 
That is hardly true now, and then there was more 
cultivation than at present. If there is one thing 
more than another which Corsica produces, and 
readily, it is fruit of every kind. Indeed, the orange 
and lemon are produced the next year after planting. 
Seneca says the island had no charming trees. He 
had never seen the evergreen oaks near Evisa, or the 
splendid larches of Aitone, or the chesnut groves of 
Castagniccia. They are indigenous, and must have 
been on the island eighteen hundred years ago. 

Again, this philosopher says : ' She produces no- 
thing which other people seek, and is not able to 
nourish those who cultivate her. What more has she 
than rocks ? Where are to be found more priva- 
tions ? Where does man suffer more ? What is more 
horrible than the aspect of the country ? ' I have no 
patience with this old slanderer. At the very time 
he was writing this libel, Rome was drawing on Cor- 
sica for many varieties of marble — the white equal 
to that of Carrara, the verde antique, whose beauty 
now decorates the Sistine Chapel — for grain and 
fruits and fish, and many other supplies. The fish 
in and around the island are those which Horace 
celebrated in song, and Lucullus served upon his table. 
I have seen the nets drawn upon these shores with a 



His want of Apostolic or Waltonian Predilections, i o i 

miraculous draught at times, and seldom with a ' water 
haul.' The fish are gorgeously coloured — having all 
that the prism can give of hue and all the delicacy 
the epicure could desire. Green and gold fish, fish all 
a-flame, fish grey and silver, fish striped with bands of 
beauty, fish with fins and horns, and fish with black 
and white spots, and in fine, the devil-fish itself — are 
here used for food. Here is to be found the chan- 
ticleer of fish, coq de mer^ with brilliant and blue 
wings ; hard to catch, for he can fly out of the net. 
This chanticleer of fishes is a searcher after sunbeams ; 
and that he finds them in the denser element, his 
vivid hues attest. Crabs are found here ; oysters are 
plenty at Bonifacio ; the languste, or lobster, is com- 
mon ; sardines, mackerel, soles, and whatsoever else is 
delicate for the taste and suitable for food. Seneca had 
none of the Apostolic — or Waltonian — predilections, 
or he would not have abused Corsica. 

The people may have been then what they are now, 
rather independent and indolent; but why should 
Seneca depreciate what is the glory of Corsica — her 
rocks and mountains, which he calls horrible spectres — 
unless the cunning old courtier was home-sick and 
wanted to be about the palace. Doubtless he delibe- 
rately exaggerated the inconsolable state of his exile, 
in order to interest the Romans in his favour by 
drawing on their sympathies. He accused the Cor- 
sicans of being revengeful. He wreaked his spite for 
his exile on the people and the land ; and even on 
the rocks. To him the rocks were frightfuL Perhaps 
he had seen some of the grotesque and strange forms 
cut in the rocks to which I have just referred. May 
be he had visited the region of Monte Libbio, whose 
range seems like a wall of ruined towers, guarding 
one which looks like the hooded head and form of 
an old woman, and known as ' La Sposata.' Perhaps 



I02 The Devil exorcised by St. Martin. 

he had been to Rocapina, upon whose headland the 
figure of a Hon reposes, head up, one leg down, look- 
ing off to Sardinia — a wonderful piece of natural 
statuary ! Perhaps he had seen the rock at the gate 
of Ajaccio, known as the boot of St. Peter. Perhaps 
he had seen the anvil-shaped Col dell' Incudine, or 
the finger-like promontory of the northern end of the 
island ; or, perhaps, he worked up his frightful picture 
of this charming isle as the German philosopher did 
his camel, out of his own consciousness. One thing 
is sure, he could not have visited this part of the 
island where we now travel ; for it would have extorted 
even from exiled cynicism a tribute to its cultivation, 
charm, and resources. 

Not alone are these rocky shapes or mis-shapes so 
common as to attract the wayfarer ; but upon then! 
are hung, like garlands, many a beautiful tradition or 
weird story. There is one mountain, Talafonata, which 
has a hole in it, into which the sun when he gets up, 
tired with labouring over the Corsican alps, creeps in 
about noon for a siesta. The people of Niolo say^ 
that the devil — who is represented as an agriculturist, 
— perhaps because agriculture is held in such low 
esteem in Corsica, — was one day ploughing with his 
team of oxen on Campo Tile. St. Martin was coming 
over the plain ; and as he had prejudices against dia- 
bolism, he tried to exorcise the devil. A quarrel 
ensued. While Diabolus was engaged in using harsh 
language to the Saint, his plough struck a rock. 
I should not wonder at that at all, nor that the 
plough broke. The devil attempted to mend it, but 
could not. Getting as mad as the devil — does at 
times, he hurled his hammer high in air ; it knocked 
a hole in Mont Talafonata. When he turned to 
look after his ' cattle,' he found them, by some 
Medusa-like witchery, turned into stone ; and we saw. 



The Cttres House at La Pu 



lana. 



03 



or fancied we saw, several yoke of petrified oxen on 
our way to La Piana. 

When we reached La Piana, in the afternoon, 
the whole population, including some hundreds of 
children, came out to look. As we walked out to 
look at the sea, under the guidance of the mayor, 
they followed. He used his baton to drive them 
back, in vain. After our view, we were invited into 
his house, and were there hospitably entertained. . It 
was cool, stony, and clean. It had no cushioned chairs 
or sofas, and no glass in the windows ; but it was 
hospitable and open. 

We had no sooner entered this town than an appre- 
hension seized us that we should have to roost out 
among the chickens. On looking at our memoranda 
^^^for no guide-books give us information — the only 
inn mentioned was put dov/n as ' bad.' We had, on 
our entrance, luckily passed by it. One house in the 
main street looked comfortable. We ask whose it is 
'It is the cures.' We are invited to occupy it, all 
thanks to the cure. We mount to the second etage 
by a steep wooden stairway, half ladder and half steps, 
and through the narrow and dark stony passages we 
reach the third floor. Our horses are stabled on the 
ground floor. The street is, happily, wide enough for 
our carriage to repose in over night. We have one 
chamber, and an improvised couch among the fleas in 
the ' Salon de Reception.' I must say that while 
Corsica has many virtues, and good food is one of 
them, the abodes are comfortless and dirty. A bright 
young boy, belonging to the hotel, and who w^ould 
take no money for his courtesies, escorted us about 
the town after our meal. The curiosity to see us 
was still intense ; throngs followed us in the streets, 
and every window was adorned with female heads. It 
had been bruited about that we were Americans, and 



I04 A Corsican in America during the War. 

one citizen asserted that he had had the happiness to 
see the writer in Washington during the war. As 
that was not unlikely, we had an interview with this 
happy citizen. I wondered what could have taken 
him to America. He told us that he had been to 
New Orleans on a venture, and was caught there by 
the war. On trying to get North, he had been cap- 
tured. As he could not speak English, he was taken 
before a general, whose name he could not recall, but 
he was a great astronomer ! ' General Mitchell ? ' I 
asked. ' Si, signor.' General M. had questioned him, 
and finding no evil in him, let him pass through his 
lines to the North. This incident made him quite a 
hero. Under his conduct we visited the little church, 
of which the population were proud, because the altar 
had been given by the Empress Eugenie. The 
curiosity of these kind people may be pardoned for 
their hospitality. At dinner, the cure, whose chamber 
was opposite ours, sent his compliments, and a pre- 
sent of fresh and toothsome prunes, and then some 
wine. He spent the evening with us, smoking and 
talking. ' His people,' he said, ' were poor, but rich., 
as they did not require much.' Our beds were hard, 
though clean. Mine was designated as 'un lit de 
mariage.' Wherefore ? Because the pillows were 
trimmed with embroidered ruffling. The sheets were 
very coarse, so as to feel cold. 

While enjoying our after-dinner smoke and gossip, 
quite a scene occurred. In rushed upon us an insane 
woman, little, thin, and weird. The Madame of our 
party seemed to be the object of her attention. Before 
we knew it, the witch was down on her knees before 
Madame; and before we could understand what she 
was doing ; she crossed herself, then made the sign 
of the cross on the forehead of Madame. Her 
incantations were in patois, and not to be understood. 



n 



Plaintive Intonation of the Corsica7i Vocero. 105 

We said to her, in Italian, that her language was unin- 
telligible — that we could not understand her : ' No 
matter,' she replied, ' the good God does ! ' Finally, 
we were given to understand that she was divinely 
directed to have the benediction from the American 
Madame ! Equal to the occasion, the Madame gave 
it with a touching pathos and out-stretched palms, 
that seemed to ' satisfy the sentiment,' and which, as 
an artistic touch, any histrionic Heavy Father would 
approve ! 

We heard no more of her, unless it was her voice, 
whose wild crooning awakened me at day-break, with 
a song so unearthly in its intonations and so sad in its 
moaning, that it made the heart ache. The tears 
seemed to be in her voice as she sang. This was a 
lyric sample of that national music of which we had 
heard — a lament much in vogue in the days of the 
Vendetta, and not yet obsolete. Sometimes, in times 
of bereavement, these elegies are yet improvised. 
Their simplicity is very touching. I have read one 
song, sung by a young girl of Ota, who rejoiced in the 
name of Fior di Spina, or hawthorn flower. She had 
killed a lover who had refused her marriage. The 
burden of her song was that she was very unhappy, 
though courageous, and had to rove the mountains 
and wild paths among the bandits, whose brave hearts 
would protect her. The recitation of our songstress, 
as we learned, had reference to a brigand and a 
peasant girl. The girl had been out on the moun- 
tains gathering faggots, and had loaded her donkey. 
She was hastening home as evening came on. It was 
in the time and region when and where the famous 
brigand Serafino — (I think I have seen him on the 
theatrical boards) — lived and preyed. Apprehensive 
of Serafino, her fears were soon allayed by the appear- 
ance of a gentlemanly gendarme. They walked, and 



io6 Anecdotes of the Brigand Serafino, 

talked, enamoured and enamouring. They chatted of 
the terrible Serafino. I need not say that the soldier 
and Serafino were one. He saw her home — her and 
her donkey — but the maiden 'ne'er' saw him morei 
She pined in monotones of lamentation for the love 
of her brigand ! There ! is not that a pretty story 
by whose music to awake in a region so renowned 
in brigandage? By the way, the last story told of 
Serafino has its scene near Ajaccio, on the road to 
Sartene. A captain of gendarmes was traversing 
Cam-po di Loro on a pony. He was overtaken by a 
peasant on foot. The officer dismounted to fix the 
girth of his saddle. The peasant, allowing the sun 
to glance upon his dagger, civilly remarked, pointing 
to his own boots, ' Are these fit for Serafino ? ' Exit 
Serafino on a pony. Exit officer, bootless ! 

Since penning the above, I have heard the songs 
of the Moors and the Spaniards. I declare that the 
similarity of tone, the drawl of lamentation, the soul 
of sorrow, which follows my memory of Algiers 
and Andalusia, seem but the echoes of the lyrics 
of Corsica ? Have the Saracens set the Mediter^ 
ranean to a music of their own ? — These voceros, 
are they the language of the dead nations, whose 
ghosts haunt the shores of this historic and poetical 
sea? 

Most of these voceros are laments over those slain 
in family feuds. They are the poetry of La Ven- 
detta. Happily for Corsica, this barbarous system of 
rude justice is nearly extinct. Its principal seat was 
in the centre of the island, around Sartene, Vico, 
and Corte. Persons are known to have been shut 
up for years, close prisoners in their own stone 
houses, with only shot-holes open ; the windows being 
stuffed with mattresses. The prisoner was always 
on guard for his life, from the bullet. His relatives 



La Vendetta. 107 



tilled his land, or cared for his flocks, but did it 
under sentinel. There are instances where men have 
lived in this self-immured jail for a score of years. In 
1853 the Government forbade the carrying of arms, 
in order to suppress this system, but the prohibition 
failed. Then the system of mounted mountain-police 
was established. It has done much to eradicate the 
evil. The Catholic priesthood and religion have been 
more efficient agents of reconciliation. I heard of 
many instances where these agents were of inestimable 
utility. The law of revenge is so alien to the spirit 
of Christian kindness, that to establish the latter is to 
extirpate the former. At Sartene there had been a 
feud between the Rocca Serra and the Ortoli families 
since 18 15. This feud grew out of political differ- 
ences. One clan called themselves White Bourbonist, 
and the other Red Republican. When Napoleon 
became Prince President, a pubHc reconciliation took 
place, and the children of the two houses, in happy 
innocence, were allowed to dance together! With 
the extirpation of La Vendetta brigandage dies, as the 
brigand is not so much a robber as an outlaw. He 
is driven to the rocks and mountains because the 
avenger of blood or the Government has been on his 
track. Strangers are not in any danger from the 
brigands of the isle, if any remain. The principal 
cause of these vengeful raids and murders is the old 
passion — love. An insult or a wrong to a female rela- 
tive, and La Vendetta takes it up. Often the woman 
herself, with her bright, little, pointed dirk, with Ven- 
detta burned on one side, and Mort on the other, 
pursues her vengeance, like a fury, to the ' sticking 
point.' 

Sometimes there is a comic side to these feuds. On 
the eastern side of the island, the inhabitants of two 
villages were celebrating a religious fete. Their pro- 



io8 Polyglot Imprecations against Fleas. 

cessions became confused by the carcass of a dead 
donkey in the way. The inhabitants of each village 
accused those of the other of placing it there as an 
insult. A mortal enmity and stubborn conflict ensued. 
The two towns, Borgo and Lucciana, were held in 
blockade by each other. The contest was, who should 
keep the carcass. The donkey did more travelling 
in that asinine war than when in full sonorous life. 
It was carried from village to village with many san- 
guinary conflicts. Once Borgo placed it in the church 
door of Lucciana, and once Lucciana hung it as a 
trophy on the steeple of Borgo ! Finally, to prevent 
further bloodshed, the Mayor of Lucciana ' digged 
a pit,' and hid therein the teterrima causa belli, A 
burlesque poem has been written to celebrate this war 
of the donkey. How much moral there is in the 
lesson, for nations outside this fragrant island ! 

The lament of the crone did not awake me at the 
hotel. I was already awake. It saluted my aroused 
sense. Other lively matters surround the traveller in 
the Corsican mountains besides vociferating females 
and supposititious bandits. If the fleas were only as 
harmless as the brigands are now-a-days in Corsica 
travelling here would involve less trouble. Our Italian 
companion was frequently heard to ejaculate, with 
polyglot volubility, during the night, from her 
populous couch, ' Mon Dieu f ' Sapristi I ' 'Ack f 
Der Deufel! ' ' Corpo di Bacco I ' ' Zou7ids I ' 

Morning comes. The lament had hardly ceased, 
before it seemed as if all the population were out and 
about. The bells begin to ring. The chickens in 
the house begin to crow and cluck. The donkeys 
begin their dissonant noises. The interminable chatter 
of voices is heard in the street below. We could 
not sleep, even if fleas were not ; so we arise and 
walk out to find some cigars* We find them in a 



The Greek Colony of Carghese. 109 

shoemaker's shop ; his wife makes them herself. We 
perceive upon the piazza — 40 by 60 feet- — about two 
dozen of the principal citizens — including the Mayor 
and the travelled man. They are walking by sixes 
backwards and forwards, and talking very loud, as 
if they were all mad. They lift their caps altogether, 
and the travelled man astonishes his companions and 
myself by saying ' Good-bye ' for ' Good morning ! ' 
I passed round the cigars. They were received with 
exemplary politeness. After breakfast they came to 
see us off, the kind priest among them, and we were 
soon upon the high-road, flying down and toiling up 
the mountains which skirt the coast. Relics of the 
Moorish invasion and of Genoese rule — old castles 
and towers of look-out — cap the pinnacles along the 
sea. Soon we reach the ' Plain of Silver.' It was so 
named because richly cultivated with flax and barley, 
olive and vine, sheep and goats. 

We met here some peasants with guns. They had 
licenses, I suppose, as that is the law. The Vendetta 
must be suppressed, and guns are prohibited, except 
under special license. The game is plentiful. We 
saw the red-legged partridge and the hare. Black- 
birds, called merle (not our blackbird of America, but 
a bird quite in vogue here for the table) are sought, 
not only for sport but as a business, to be potted for 
commerce. The crow here is partly white, and we 
saw plenty of them. Hundreds of peasants, women 
and men, were scattered over the plain, picking out 
the weeds and bad barley from the young grain. 

This plain is the precursor of the Greek colony of 
Carghese, which we have resolved to visit. Certainly 
the environs of Carghese bespeak more of industry 
than the Corsicans bestow even on their fat plains. 
The Greek colony has been here for over four hun- 
dred years. I have looked in vain through the meagre 



1 1 o Greek Features of the Population. 

little pamphlets on Corsica, into the French geo- 
graphies, and guide-books, intended to instruct the 
stranger about this island ; I find no allusion to this 
colony or its history. But from personal observation 
of the people and their habits and features, and from 
a comparison of my own observations when in Greece, 
I have no doubt that Carghese is, as represented, a 
Greek colony. These Greeks, flying from the tyranny 
of the Ottoman, landed on this promontory, which 
encloses the Gulf of Sagone. They have made it rich 
in production, if not classic in cultivation. For many 
years their descendants refused to intermarry with the 
islanders. They preserved their religion, their dress, 
their language and customs ; but their seclusion is 
giving way, as I should judge, by what I learned 
during our stay. 

We were hardly ready for this Attic colony before 
we were in its village. It lies under the brow of the 
mountain. Our eyes and minds were employed as 
we rode along the coast, in viewing the ever-splendid 
sea, all white with the recent tempest, and lashing itself 
into mist against the rocky shores. The cultivation 
of the lands is superior. The prickly pear is common, 
but most the vine, for which these Greeks are cele- 
brated, abounds on the mountain sides. Our pre- 
monitions that we were approaching the Greeks were, 
the Greek cross on the road side ; and here and there 
fountains, where Grecian maidens and old women, 
v/ith their classic water -jars, made quite a tableau. 
These are the children of the great old Greeks of 
whom we have read. The nose, the eye, the mien 
— though they are of peasants---indicate the physical 
elegance of the Grecian. We drive into town. There, 
as if on parade in the street, and marching with a 
French officer, is the venerable Greek priest. He 
fills your idea of a Druid, under the most ancient of 



Intelligent Descendajits of Socrates a7id Plato. 1 1 1 

oaks. His beard was half-way down his body, and 
milk-white : his hair is long and white ; he wears a 
long, black robe, and black sombrero of immense 
periphery of rim. We drove to the inn. There we 
find a Greek landlady, very proud, indeed, of her 
Grecian blood, and of two Greek daughters, very 
beautiful. Their faces might have been chiselled by 
Phidias. The son of the landlady, however, has 
married a black-eyed Corsican girl, who can talk 
French. She invites us to the hospitalities ; but, un- 
like the Corsican and Catholic people, she charges 
for them with an exaggerated idea of their value. 
She is the daughter of our landlady at La Piana. 
After partaking of the rare wines of Carghese, we visit 
the Greek church, and luckily, while prayers are said 
by another Greek priest with long black hair and 
beard. This church is very small, but there is a 
grand one now building, started by a subscription 
from the late Emperor of Russia, Nicholas. The 
process of erection does not go on with much alacrity. 
The church we visited was slightly decorated. It 
rejoiced in some pictorial daubs of saints. The neigh- 
bouring Catholic church is much more prosperous ; and 
I should say that the Latin race and its religion was 
fast absorbing the remnant of the children of Epami- 
nondas and Pericles, left so forlorn on these distant 
shores. 

I cannot say much for the intelligence of these 
descendants of Socrates and Plato. Endeavouring to 
explain to some of them that I had sent a despatch 
under an ocean three thousand miles broad, which 
was received several hours earlier in America than 
when it started from France — these people looked 
amazed. No explanation of the sun's apparent mo- 
tion, caused by the earth's motion about its axis, or 
of the telegraphic cable, could make the statement 



112 One-eyed Population of Sagone. 

. -:ji , , 

comprehensible. Well, perhaps it would be a poser 
for Aristotle himself. Wine, figs, raisins, broccio, 
they understood : and after a good time, long to be 
remembered, we started again, and arrived at Sa- 
gone. 

I do not know whether it is from the intensity of 
the sun's beams, or from want of cleanliness ; but in 
Corsica there are a good many people with sore eyes. 
In Sagone the people seemed to be distinguished by 
being one-eyed. The landlady, and the girl who 
helped her — almost everybody but curate and custom- 
house officers— were one-eyed. The blacksmith was 
a genuine Polyphemus. But all — officers included 
— had an eye-single to our comfort. No pay would 
they accept. They pressed us to remain ; forced on 
us wine, cheese, and bread ; and after many regrets, 
we left them to dash through four hours of descent 
into Ajaccio. 

From this round trip, which I have described, made 
at an unpropitious season, but made very pleasant 
by unceasing hospitality, my readers may glean some- 
thing about this island not to be found in any other 
way, or in any book. We propose to make visits to 
other towns over the island, over the mountains again 
to Bastia ; through Corte, the ancient capital ; thence 
to Calvi ; thence again, after returning to Bastia, to 
the South, through the chestnut land, to Bonifacia. 
But this is in reserve for a better month ; and, per- 
haps, from the other side of the island. Bastia can 
be reached from Genoa, or Leghorn, in a few hours of 
boating and in a smooth sea ; for Corsica is a break- 
water against the storms from the South and West. 



( 113 ) 




CHAPTER VII. 

THE CLAIMS OF CORSICA AS A HEALTH 
RESORT, ETC. 

" Almost all patients lie with their faces to the light, exactly as plants 
make their way towards the light/' — Florence Nightingale. 

N the preliminary chapter, I have en- 
deavoured to explain the title of the 
volume — ' Search after Sunbeams.' I have 
pursued this search^ with some days of 
failure, in the mountains. But on returning to 
Ajaccio, whose situation and surroundings are at 
once beautiful and salubrious, I might be pardoned 
for trying in a few pages to attain a more valuable 
object than the mere description of scenery or people. 
It has been a great desideratum with physicians to 
find a climate which is dry, warm, and stimulating in 
winter for patients suffering from pulmonary troubles. 
Any doctor of eminence in Europe or America, 
who has kept pace with the advance of his pro- 
fession, will advise, not that his patient should go 
to Nassau — that is too hot; nor to Cuba, for the 
same reason ; nor the Island of Madeira — that is too 
moist, and, while it mitigates suffering, does not cure; 
but he would advise a climate which is at once stimu- 
lating and mild. 

Ajaccio, like Nice, Cannes, Mentone, and other 
towns of the coast, is screened by the great mountains 
of the island. The town is especially protected from 
the north-west by a spur descending to the sea from 



1 14 Angela^ aged i lo, Servant of Madame Letitia. 

the great range into whose bosom we have travelled. 
It is warmer than Nice. No harsh winds blow unless 
you go, imprudently, as I did, into the very moun- 
tains in February. The atmosphere is still ; the 
weather is constantly fine. Although we are here in 
the worst month and have ventured into the high 
latitude of the mountains, and roughed it generally, 
yet we have found but little difference between this 
climate in March and that of New York in May. 

The number of aged people we have met with in 
Corsica is incredible. Joyce Heyth would have lived 
here to the full measure of Mr. Barnum's apocryphal 
statement. Indeed, there does live, up in the beautiful 
country which we have visited, near Vico, in the valley 
of Liamone, in the hamlet of Murzo, the veritable old 
woman, Angela Pietro, aged no years, who was the 
servant of the mother of the first Napoleon. She was 
with Madame Letitia at the time of the Anti-French 
emeute at Ajaccio,, when the Bonaparte family had to 
'run for it.' She is nearly blind, but has some me- 
mory, and talks of the Great Napoleon and the events 
of those memorable days with the volubility of Joyce, 
if not with her imagination. 

But, with all these healthy elements, one thing Cor- 
sica has not, as yet, but soon will have — good and 
comfortable accommodations for the invalid and 
tourist. One thing, however, it has, which makes up 
for the lack of these — a fresh, glorious scenery of 
mountain and sea, whose ever-varying charms I have 
tried, I hope not quite in vain, to picture. But 
these attractions, however charming and however 
painted, are but whip-syllabub compared to the sub- 
stantial benefits which, like good nutriment, help 
to build up the debilitated frames which have in- 
herited or inhaled the poison of consumption. 

There will always be one impediment to Corsica 



Dr. Ribton of Ajaccio. \ 1 5 



as a winter health resort. The invaUd must cross in 
winter a stormy sea. He may become port-bound, 
before he can either reach his haven or leave it. An 
American friend — a lady — was kept three weeks at 
Ajaccio before she could get away. This was in con- 
sequence of the storms, and the uncertainty of the 
arrival and departure of the Nice and Marseilles 
vessels. Besides, the steamers propose to run only 
once a fortnight. The accomm.odations in Ajaccio 
are poor ; the apartments are not ' glorified ' by the 
sunbeams. Most of my time was spent in lying 
around, over the sun-warmed rocks of the bay, reading 
and writing, or gathering the tiny exquisite shells 
which fill the nooks of the rocks and the sand of 
the beach. We found hospitable and comfortable 
quarters with Dr. Ribton, in cottage No. i, along 
the promenade or Cours Napoleon. Our windows 
looked out upon, and across the bay — a perpetual 
sparkling joy! The view reached to the mountains 
of snow beyond its shores — and the breath of all the 
perfumes of Arabia seemed to come from these moun- 
tains on the approach of evening. We were happy 
in having such apartments with- such views. The 
hotels of the town — some two or three — have sunless 
and dirty rooms ; the servants are ignorant and not 
by any means neat in apparel or habits, and the 
prices charged for such poor accommodation are ex- 
orbitant. These are the offsets to the attraction of 
Corsica. One thing is to be said, and said in a hun- 
dred ways, that the main thing, for which Corsica 
is to be visited, is its mountain scenery ; and this 
as well by invalids as healthy tourists. The proper 
time for this is in May, when the snow is all off the 
interior, when the forests and peaks may be reached 
and the vines and chesnuts are coming out in green. 
The climate of Ajaccio may, for some invalids — 

I 2, 



1 1 6 The Riviera and Ajaccio in Phthisis compared. 

especially those in the earlier and more curable stages 
of phthisis, be too relaxing. One of my American 
friends found it so this winter. He left for Capri, to 
test that place ; he had spent most of the winter in 
Mentone, with the best results. He needed the dry, 
invigorating climate of the Riviera. A winter climate, 
like that of Ajaccio — temperate, sunny, and rather 
moist, with the uniformity of Madeira, and without 
the heat of Egypt, or sirocco of Sicily, without the 
bad drainage of Naples, or the unpleasant river-bed 
of Malaga — would be more suitable for the advanced 
and almost remediless stage of the disease. Life might 
be happily prolonged under such a sky ; and under 
proper hygienic conditions, it might be saved. But 
as the conclusion of my judgment, and as the result 
of a long search after the ' beams ' which have the 
most balm, I yield my preference to the Riviera and 
Mentone. Yet as I leave Ajaccio, where I have 
received so much happiness and strength, I cast a 
lingering look behind. If I visit it again, I shall 
regret that social disquietudes have driven my friend 
Dr. Ribton even to Capri. 

I close this chapter on the steamer from Ajaccio. 
It is a bright sunny morning. Three or four hours 
and we are at Nice ; we shall then be on solid con- 
tinental ground again, and nearer home. We have 
had a rough night on the sea ; but how brightly 
breaks the morning! Far off — forty miles or more 
— I can discern, with perfect clearness and without 
glass, the snow mountains of the Maritime Alps, 
making a circle of silvery beauty, almost afloat in the 
upper ether! From this' distance no shore line is 
visible, nor is the lower range of mountains on the 
Riviera. The dark range of the Estrelles beyond 
Cannes, to the west, is faintly seen. The splendid 
vision of these distant cloud-like mountains, is proof 



Coup (Toeir of Mountain Scenery. 117 



to me of the rather grandiose statement in a pre- 
ceding chapter, viz. : — That from a lofty, or a distant 
point, in this pure air, and under favorable conditions, 
one may, with a coup d' oeil^ grasp a splendid range 
of mountain scenery — almost take in half the shores 
of France and Italy ! 



( ii8 ) 




CHAPTER VIII. 

AD VENT INTO AFRICA. 

" Gaze where some distant sail a speck supplies, 
With all the thirsting eye of — Enterprize ! 
Tell o'er the tales of many a night of toil, 
And marvel where they next shall seize a spoil. — 
. No matter where, — their chief's allotment this : 
Theirs, to believe no prey or plan amiss." 

Byron's ' Corsair.' 

HE excitement of leaving a port like Mar- 
seilles is not lessened because it is in a 
foreign land. There is always a sense of 
the uncertainty of such a voyage over the 
waste of waters ; but there was a special and emphatic 
feeling as we passed out of Europe with our prow 
turned towards Africa. The gateways of Marseilles, 
constructed out of immense blocks of artificial stone, 
the rocks and isles about the harbour, and the moun- 
tains by the sea, are so bleak and grand, that one 
cannot leave them behind without admiration, and, if 
a poor sailor, without emotion. One hundred and 
sixty-eight years before, Addison sailed out of Mar- 
seilles on his visit to Italy. He could not fail to see 
the classic aspects of the place, and records the olive- 
trees and gardens, ' the sweet plants — as wild thyme, 
lavender, rosemary, balme, and mirtle ;' and the deserts, 
as he terms the rocky places. He found where 
Ulysses shed the blood of victims, and ' raised a pale 
assembly of the dead ; ' but he gives us no account 
of the splendid harbour out of which he moved, and 
which Nature had made for the commercial metropolis 




< 



o^ 



Landing at Algiers. 119 



of France. Could Addison have seen, what we saw, 
the hundred ships under sail, and the steamers under 
way, he might have given more than one quotation to 
illustrate the initiation of his voyage. 

Our vessel was not well ballasted ; it had a wabbling 
motion scarcely endurable. But the beautiful sea 
nearly made us forget the consequent uneasiness. 
What a sea it was ! The greenish-blue was so bright, 
the crests so glittering, the offing so ethereal, and the 
sun sank in bars of red, violet, and gold. The warm 
air, in spite of all premonitions from within, drew us 
to the deck, and we began to feel that we were on our 
way to a sunnier clime. It was like a voyage to the 
Hesperides, with the anticipation of the sun, bloom, 
fruit, and joys of the classic garden, and without the 
Dragon to disturb the promise. 

On the next day we passed between Minorca and 
Majorca. Our glasses failed to reveal much of interest 
or of beauty. Still the lofty summit of Monte Toro 
was to us a beacon and a sign. 

As we neared Algiers, the sight of that mysterious 
Afric land was welcome. At first the city was a little 
triangle of white specks ; then it grew into a city 
whose surroundings, from the Sahel hills to the Atlas 
snowy mountains on the left, were full of real interest. 
Then the long low line of coast came in view, and the 
white square houses loomed up before the vision ; 
then, with the aid of an English resident, we could 
perceive to the right the dark rocky inlets and forts 
which the corsairs made their lair; and, finally, we 
wound into the jetties of the bay and harbour, and 
were at rest in the tranquil waters of Africa. There is 
here a harbour or jetty quite artificial, and a hundred 
vessels, many of them steamers, are within. A green 
spot within the harbour tells us that the French are 
here, for we see the soldiers and cannon. The heat i^ 



I20 Orientalism of Algiers unchanged. 

intense, but it is not that of the sirocco. Nor is the 
city wanting in European comfort. The new Hotel 
d'Orient received us, and the motley groups at wharf 
and dock and in the streets were a continual provo- 
cation to our curiosity. The crowds were as many- 
coloured as Joseph's coat, and they fought for our 
baggage in a very rough way. The pervading im- 
pression as I looked at Algiers from the ocean and in 
the bay, at its old and new town, its green hills 
covered with villas, and its compact town of white 
houses, was — how remote from the world is all this ! 
Who would come so far to see so little ? This is all 
that remains on this coast to mark the power of the 
Barbary corsairs who held Europe in fear so long ! 

Soon we are assured that we are in the Orient. 
Veiled women and bournoused men ; flowing robes 
and mysterious wrappages ; ragged Bedouins driving 
donkeys, or sitting on them, their long robes almost 
dragging in the white dust of the street ; mosques 
with minarets and domes, surrounded by slow, lazy, 
easy-going people ; palm-trees and stately aloes, cactus 
and lilac, fuchsias and bignonias ; all the sweet flowers, 
fragrant shrubs, and stately trees, which are made of 
the sunbeams, soon assured us that we were in a milder 
clime than we had left. It was the Orient, at the 
door of Europe. Forty odd hours of sea-going, and 
here we are in the very home of Abd-el-Kader, and 
among the children of the desert ! 

But all is confusion yet. Such a mixed and bizarre 
company of beings at every turn must give us pause. 
It takes time, inquiry, and study, to classify the con- 
fusion incident to a city so Mosaic in its character 
and people. The different nationalities and costumes 
were like the moving figures at a fair. The thirty- 
six years of French occupation has not greatly changed 
the shell, much less the kernel, of the Orientalism and 




)^ARRIOR AT j^RAYER. 



The Hebrew Population. 121 

Mahomedanism here prevalent. The more I see of 
the city, the more I see that French toleration, and its 
un-Puritanic ideas of social life, have not made much 
progress in the way of changing the distinctive civili- 
zation of North Africa. It is true the French hold 
this city, and the country as far as the Desert, by the 
aid of forts and soldiers ; it is said, moreover, that 
there are more stores, cafes, music-places, tobacco 
shops, and other signs of French life, than in any 
town of the same size in France. But these are for 
the sixteen thousand French, who regard Algiers as a 
place of exile, and hope, when they realise sufficient 
means, to return to France. Even the peasants have 
an idea that their home is not permanent. The 
French adventurers on our boat said: ' Au revoir^ to 
their friends. What with danger of outbreaks, and 
the roughest usage earthquakes can give (they have 
just experienced one in the province of Constantine), 
and the parching heat of summer, the prosperity of 
Algiers is likely to run hand in hand with military 
occupation and expenditure. The old elements — 
Arabic, Turkish, or Moorish, or, to comprehend all, 
Oriental— remain intact. True, in Algiers City pro- 
perty has advanced. The city, which used to be 
visited by pestilence, in the time of the pirates, is 
comparatively clean and salubrious. Business seems 
brisk on the quay. A railroad runs as far as Blidah, 
west, thirty miles. A theatre, quite elegant on the 
outside, is established. The city seems to be, and is, 
growing ; but it is the hot-house growth of official 
and military occupation, rather than a healthy, steady, 
national growth. But is it the less interesting on that 
account? 

I learned, when inquiring about the character and 
condition of the Hebrew population, that they were 
the most prosperous. In fact^ they have, since the 



1 2 2 Beauty of the Arab and Moorish Children, 

French occupation, and since they have been per- 
mitted to hold property, acquired nearly all the estates 
of the city. Going into their Synagogue, we were 
received with the greatest courtesy. Dressed in the 
black turban, wound around a red fez cap, and in 
their dark cloak, gracefully thrown over the shoulder, 
and the inevitable loose pantaloons, they seem at once 
the best apparelled and most intelligent of the indi- 
genous population. They have been almost as long 
here in North Africa as the Berbers. They number, 
in the city, over 6000. Their women dress in gaudy 
colours, with cinctures of gold, and embroidered 
ribbons, and invariably their black hair is hid under 
a black satin cover. Their children are beautiful ; 
though that may be said of the Arab and Moorish 
children. I have been in several schools. I never 
saw more handsome little children than the Arab and 
Moorish. Their eyes are dark and vivaciously ex- 
pressive. It is not a gloomy, dead black, but it has 
a daring glitter, that spoke of the grand and active 
race which brought civilization from the East to the 
now dominant Western races. I need only refer to 
Buckle's second volume, where justice is done to the 
tact, skill, learning, and intelligence of this remarkable 
race. They gave us arithmetic, algebra, astronomy, 
and chemistry. Their doctors in medicine and scholar- 
ship informed the world of mind during the darkest of 
the ages. As I looked on these sweet blossoms of the 
old magnificence of the Moorish tree, I recalled how 
the old stock had weathered the storms of centuries ! 
How they fought the Spaniards on the soil of Anda- 
lusia, to hold their own, amidst the smiling lands, 
where every vale was a Tempe, and every Tempe a 
poem — where the Alhambra itself arose like a grand 
epic, through which resounded the clash of arms and 
the songs of maidens ! I remembered how more 



Moorish Embroidery. 123 



egotistic nations have themselves pirated on the weak 
— Britain in the Caribbean and in India, the Dutch 
among the spice lands of the Far East, the French 
in Cochin China — not to come nearer — and Spain 
herself, with her flag of red and gold — rivers of red 
between banks of gold — had pillaged and enslaved a 
hemisphere. I remembered all these things and, in 
the face of the sweet Moorish children, I forgot the 
Barbary Buccaneers, so vilipended by history, who 
scoured the seas from the Golden Horn to the Gates 
of Hercules ; and for these recollections and in this 
spirit of charity, I confess to have heard, with com- 
pound interest, these children of the children of the 
Orient sing their alphabet from the tablets before 
them under the tutelage of an Abyssinian gray-beard, 
all black, save his turban of spotless white. I could 
see that the schoolmaster was ' abroad ' as well as at 
home. When we went into Madame Luce's house, in 
the crowded part of the city, to see her Oriental 
embroidery, what an interesting juvenile group we 
found ! Some thirty beautiful Moorish girls, as fair 
as any such group in New York (save one of glossiest 
ebony), were all at work, sitting on the floor over 
their frames, and finishing the inwoven elegance of 
those fabrics which so astonish the Occidental lady by 
their perfection of needlework. I saw new meaning in 
Shakespeare's lines : — 

" The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense." 

These girls — nearly all — even the smallest, of four 
years, had the tiny nails of their pliant fingers stained 
dark with henna, and their hair coloured into a reddish 
wine-colour. This colour of the hair they retain till 
they marry. Then it is stained black. When the 
hair becomes grey, in their old age, they stain it red 
again. One of the children was tattooed over her 



1 24 Sisters of Charity, — ' Enfants trottvSs^ 



beautiful face. So modest, so pale, and so fair, it 
seemed cruel to pick into her pale cuticle the bluish 
tints, in shape of star and crescent, and other marks 
signifying, as our guide Hahmoud told us, the tribe 
to which she belonged. What a contrast to these 
little beauties is the shoeblack, whose portrait I give, 
and without comment ! 

We visited another group of children, in the 
crowded part of the city. We trudged through streets 
^N^ feet wide, up and down, and with barely light 
from the sky above to find our path, sometimes going 
under dark archways, to find the home, where children 
are kept for mothers who go out for the day to their 
work. At length we found it. The mothers pay only 
two sous (two cents) a day. The institution is 
economically and neatly managed, under the direction 
of the ever-blessed Sisters of Charity. They showed 
us over the establishment, from their eating saloon 
and dormitories to the topmost story. The topmost 
story had in it some twenty girls, of larger growth, 
making artificial flowers. They all rose and saluted 
us as we entered. In this company were French and 
Moor. On our descent, we crossed the court — for all 
these institutions are located in a Moorish house ; it is 
so convenient. We were ushered into a neat apart- 
ment, where were some thirty or more little cradles, 
with white coverlets, and ready to rock at the first 
infantile whisper. Over them, upon the wall, were 
written the names of the kind ladies who ' founded ' 
the cradle. These are for the abandoned children, 
born out of wedlock. There is no exclusion on 
account of race or blood. Behind a sheet-iron door 
in the wall, with an opening in it for ventilation, is a 
bed, into which, from the street, the mother or other 
' party ' places the child. The moment the child 
touches the couch, the bell rings. Under the bell 




^TREET IN ^LGIERS. 



The Deys Seraglio. 125 



there sleeps a Sister of Charity. She receives the Httle 
one before the tintinnabulation ceases. On the outside, 
in the street, locked by day, open by night, is a 
window-shutter, and over it a sign, ' Potir les en/ants 
abandojines' So you see Algiers has one of the 
requirements of French civilization which London 
and New York have not adopted. 

I have said that all the houses of the old town, and 
even those occupied by the Government, have the 
open court inside and the verandahs around the court, 
story above story. The engraving will illustrate this 
better than the text. The most superb building of 
the old regime — the residence of the Deys, in the 
town — is built in this way. It has frescoed walls and 
mosaic pavement. The doorways are of marble, 
yellow with years. The crescent still gleams here 
and there. Upon the third or fourth story is the 
seraglio, with barred windows, against which the doves 
of the Dey used to flutter and break their tender 
wings. This last remark is more serious than was 
intended ; for it had for Algiers — where for centuries 
the white Christian captive maiden was coerced into 
both slave and wife — a sad significance. 

No one, from description, can have an idea of the 
tortuous, narrow, and dirty streets which one has to 
traverse in order to go through the old city. The 
engraving presents but a small section, and that 
faintly. The lower part of the city is Frenchified. 
Arcades are built, like those of Paris. But above the 
first few streets, parallel with the Rue de I'lmperatrice, 
upon the shore, are all the vicissitudes, the ups and 
downs, twists and turns, of Oriental thoroughfares. 
It would puzzle New York or London street super- 
intendents, with their thousand miles of streetage 
under their daily eye, to rectify this Algerine system. 
But there are two reasons why the streets here are 



126 Audience Room of the Last Dey. 



thus : First, they were made narrow — the houses 
opposite actually impinging upon each other at the 
top — to obtain shade in the hot summers of the 
south ; and, secondly, they were made compact, and 
on a hill side, for defensive purposes. All the Oriental 
towns, like the towns in Italy and in Corsica which 
I have described, have these characteristics, especially 
on the seaboard. We ascended through these defiles 
to the summit of the town, and came out to the sky 
and air, and had at once a sea view. It was a positive 
relief to nose, lung, and eye. We came out at the 
top of the town. Here was the fort captured in 1830 
by the French, after their landing and fighting west of 
the city, and which was the most substantial evidence 
furnished to mankind, that the Algerine piracy or 
polity was deceased, and that France had its grip on 
this coast. Here were the old walls — twenty feet thick 
— here the old gates of the city and fort, the chains 
still hanging as they did when the Deys here held 
court. We were shown within the fort. It is an 
Oriental establishment, with French improvements — a 
large courtyard, and some four or ^n^ stories of 
porches, arched and pillared after the twisted, spiral, 
Byzantine order, surrounding it. The seraglio is at 
the top ! Within the court, as we were told, wrestlers 
and gladiators displayed their strength and skill, for 
the houri who peeped above between the iron bars, 
and for the Dey and his eunuchs, who smoked their 
chibouques and drank their mocha from the verandahs. 
There, too, in a box of a house, about as big as, and 
not unlike, a locomotive photographic shop which you 
see on wheels, is the room occupied by the last Dey — 
Hussein. It was in this he was wont to receive his 
visitors and to do business. It is built out, as it were, 
from the verandah. It overlooks the court, and is on 
the third story. It is now closed. The soldier who 




JhfoW THE pEY LOST ^LGIERS. 



The Dey slaps the French ConstiVs Face. 127 

conducted us said, that if all who wanted to see its 
inside were permitted, it would not last a month. 
We glanced into its window. It is after the Oriental 
style. Its ceiling is arabesque. Here the Dey received 
the French Consul, who came, in full uniform, to 
remonstrate against the non-payment of a debt to 
French proteges. The old Dey lost his temper, and 
slapped the Consul in the face with his fan. It was 
' all Dey ' with him then. The consul retired without 
saying ' good Dey,' and (if I may be again permitted) 
the prospects of that Dey were not afterwards so 
brilliant. In fact, they were clouded. The French 
went after him, and got him. As this is a pivot in 
history, as so many terrible battles resulted from it — 
I have indulged a little freely in some artistic touches 
to represent the scene to my reader. If I have not 
done justice to the Dey in the sketch, history has, and 
the French have also. I have seen the splendid 
pictures of Horace Vernet representing the wars of 
Algiers, especially that grand tableau at Versailles, 
where Abd-el-Kader is represented as taken ; but I 
confess that they were not the originals of my idea and 
picture. 

The grand house where the Dey lived with his 
hundred wives, and where he is supposed to have 
revelled, and which he ordered to be blown up in 
1830 — to save it, is held by the French artillery. 
The very mosque in the fort is used as a barrack. 
Around its porphyry columns and under its ample 
dome, the French soldier sleeps in his iron bedstead, 
and may be seen — as we saw him — sitting about the 
holy places cleaning his uniform, without seeming 
to care whether he looked towards Mecca or Paris. 
The crescent pales before the cannon of modern 
civilization. 

As I have taken the liberty to illustrate how Algiers 



128 The French Conquest. 

lost the Dey by a blow from that personage, with his 
chasse mouche^ upon the infidel head of the French 
Consul, it would be more complete to append a brief 
history of that event. The citadel, or Casbah, is 
already before the reader's eye in another engraving. 
It is some 464 feet above the sea, and overlooks the 
splendid mosque of Djama, and the port and city. 
Here the Deys lived in perfect security from popular 
violence, under the guard of Janissaries ; here were 
prisons and beheadings. In the interest of civilization, 
and for some good purpose, Hassan was moved to cufF 
the Consul. Before this scene transpired, France had 
the Algerine coral franchise and paid a fixed sum for 
it to the Dey. ' Without consideration,' — he enhanced 
the sum. When the French paid the extra 3000 
francs, he perfidiously allowed others to poach on the 
coral manor. When the Consul protested, that officer 
was fined 100,000 francs. An 'unpleasantness' arose. 
In 1827, the Consul, M. Duval, still feeling unplea- 
santly, assumed to protect two Algerine Jews from the 
rapacity of the Dey. Seven milHon of francs was the 
sum which the Dey desired to confiscate, and which 
was due to the Jews. An interview, a quarrel, hot 
blood, and a blow ! When France desired reparation, 
and sent a minister with the demand, it was denied. 
The ship of the minister was fired on as it left the 
harbour ; hence a hostile French fleet from Toulon, 
and hence battles innumerable and sanguinary, from 
Constantine to Oran, and from the white marble gates 
of the Casbah to the mountainous portals of the 
Desert. 

We dread going through the old city again on our 
downward tramp to our hotel. Our guide, Hahmoud, 
takes us to the top of the hill overlooking the west 
side of the city. Here is to be seen, across the valley, 
the cathedral, called Notre Dame d'Afrique. It looks 




^HOE-ELACK. 



Visit to a MosqTu. i2( 



like a mosque, and is exquisitely proportioned and 
elegant in its airy architecture. It has been built 
since the occupation. Indeed, all the churches and 
the synagogue, even, have the Byzantine style. They 
look like mosques outside and inside, except this : 
that, whereas the mosques have no paintings — nothing 
but the carpets and matting on the floor, and a few- 
mottoes from the Koran on their walls — the French 
churches are richly decorated. One of the latter in 
the city has an attractive picture of the transfiguration. 
We visited three mosques. One of them was most 
interesting. It was built by the Turks 500 years ago, 
and has in it a splendid copy of the Koran, the gift 
of the Sultan. It is called Pecherie. It is in form 
like the Greek cross. We take off our shoes and 
boots, and slide around over the matting in a comical 
way. I have on some red slippers, which Hahmoud 
provided ; but one of them is so irreverently large and 
clumsily Christian as to lose itself Its brother slipper 
is proceeding regularly and reverently when arrested 
by Hahmoud, for Hahmoud is particular here. He 
is half Turk and half Arab. Fountains are in the 
mosque, where the bare-legged faithful lave their legs 
before they cross them in prayer, or lie down to sleep. 
We see ungainly human bundles lying in corners of 
the mosque, looking like sacks of grain, so motionless 
is their slumber under their rude burnous. I said to 
Hahmoud, ' Is there no rule to prohibit these lazzaroni 
from sleeping in your sacred temples ? ' I said this 
with something between the sacerdotal and police tone. 
I think Hahmoud conceals much waggery under his 
turban and beneath his long red silk sash and broidered 
jacket, for he said demurely: ' My honourable friend' 
— he calls me that, inasmuch as I told him that we 
were in America, all sovereigns, wearing crowns and 
bearing sceptres — (this metaphor is one of my weak- 

K 



130 Sleeping in Mosques — and Churches, 

nesses) — " my honourable friend asks me, why these 
faithful unfortunates sleep in the mosque? I ask him, 
" do the faithful never sleep in the churches of the 
Christian ? " ' Finding his honourable friend mute, he 
added, 'Our mosques are ever open for prayer. We 
know not whether our serene brethren (meaning the 
snoring Zanies) may not be overcome with prayer, 
nay, actually in prayer. Allah is great, and Mahomet 
is his prophet!' 

The doors of this mosque open into court gardens, 
where are tropical trees. Starlings fly in and out of 
them, and sing as they fly, and fly even into and 
through the mosque, and among the Byzantine 
columns and arches. Their cheerful treble brings 
sunshine to the gloomy dome, and accords somehow 
with the hoarse undertone of the Huck Hassab, or 
teacher of the Koran, who sits cross-legged in one 
angle of the mosque teaching in low monotones a 
company of youths preparing for the gospel, according 
to Mahomet. One of the youths is his own son. 
Hahmoud says that he knows the Koran already by 
heart. As the questions are asked, now and then the 
youths bow and handle their beads. They are receiving 
instruction in the ritual. Occasionally the teacher 
smiles, and once he laughed — gravely. He stops his 
laugh suddenly, as well as seriously. The Arabic 
humour has been accounted rather stern and moral. 
I seldom see much hilarity among the Moors or 
Arabs. The Kabyles are rather jocund. This Moorish 
priest and teacher shut down the breaks on his 
jocoseness, either because we Giaours were glancing at 
him, or because, having lost one of my shoes, I was 
like a chicken in the rain — stans in uno pede ; or, 
what is likely, because with the twitter of the birds 
among the pillars and in the dome, there is heard, in 
strange discord, rattling into the mosque, the rat-a-tat 




Q 

< 


5 

Q 



< 



Exhmistless variety of Raggedness. 131 

and rub-a-dub of the French drum^ alternating with 
the blare of the trumpet, which echoes and re-echoes 
through the mosque ! It is a reminder, perhaps, of 
the ' infandufn dolore^n ' of other days. In fact, as 
we emerge to the street, we perceive a French regi- 
ment on the march, knapsack on back, and going to 
the seat of war. The conquest of Algiers is not con- 
summated. Far down — ten days' journey to the 
Desert — there has been fighting. Some few months 
ago, one of the 200 desert tribes, which has never 
succumbed, broke out, got thrashed, moved over into 
Morocco, recruited its strength, and is (as our Consul 
tells us) on Algerian soil or sand, ready to renew the 
struggle. Hence this regiment is on the march ! 
There is a little moral here, about military rule, which 
I would dilate on, but Hahmoud attracts me by 
rushing up to a venerable Arab ! They embrace and 
kiss. He is a civil magistrate among Mussulmans — a 
Kadi ! By this intimacy and salute I perceive that 
Hahmoud is well thought of. I am going to see the 
Kadi with him. 

Our next entertainment was quite in contrast with 
these experiences. Towards evening we visited one 
of the squares. Here was a crowd of some 300, of 
all the motley costumes of this most motley city. The 
Kabyles and Bistri are most in number. These are 
the gentlemen from whom John Owens, the actor, 
must have copied his ' make up ' of Caleb Plummer — 
I mean his dress, which consists of a piece of bagging 
with a diamond mark, and ' Right side up ! Glass ! ' 
Coffee sacks are luxurious apparel — fit for the feast 
of Lucullus — compared with the ragged burnous of 
some of these children of the desert — the Bistri ; and 
of the mountain — the Kabyles. In fact, come to 
Algiers if you would start a paper-mill ! Rags are . 
plenty. Come, if you would see rags in all their 

K 2 



132 The Snake-charmer. 

picturesque perfection and multiformity of ghastliness, 
filth and variety — ragged at the top, ragged at the 
bottom, ragged in the middle, ragged in fringes, and 
ragged in texture ; ragged behind and before, ragged 
in holes and in patches ; the old rags adorned with 
new rags, and so stuck on, as to add aggravated graces 
of raggedness above the reach of art ; a raggedness so 
elegant in its touch as to conceal still more elegant 
elements of raggedness ; raggedness which has not 
merely resulted from the natural and acquired taste 
and condition of the ragamuffins themselves, but is 
inherited from ragged ancestors who wore and en- 
hanced by their wearing and genius the ultra-ragged- 
ness of their habits, which they have handed down to 
children born with rags on them, and who have pre- 
served, and enhanced with the lapse of time, their 
precious legacy of rags ! Here we found this incarnate 
raggedness, sitting and standing, in black rags, white 
rags, and many-coloured rags — rags pinned, sewed and 
tied, and some neither ; worn by negro and native, 
by young and old ; and all happy, in beholding in the 
centre of the ragged circle, an African from Timbuctoo 
who had but one rag around his loins, and no other 
covering save a tuft of wool on the shaven apex of his 
lithe body and a serpent twining and writhing through 
it, and around his neck and down his back ! This is 
the Snake- Charmer, Mumbo- Jumbo, by Gumbo! 

The ragged battalion give way to allow Dr. Bennet 
and myself a place in front. We are careful of our 
contact. There lies within this circle — on his back — 
legs apart and body heaving — a passive lumpish fat 
body, hid in rags. He is a part of the charm ; but as 
we do not know what he is, or does, except that the 
snake now and then creeps under his rags, we will let 
him lie. The other is the performer. He plays with 
the snake ; mumbles his words ; and then screams, 



Negroes from Soudan or Abyssinia, 133 

half-panting, his periods like a tired stump speaker in 
a high wind. Then he strikes his tom-tom, and with 
a wild dance — almost the counterpart of the planta- 
tion negro with a banjo in Alabama — he makes the 
circle wider as he moves. He stops, talks to his snake, 
twirls its shining folds into all sorts of forms, and begins 
again. The crowd understand his language. He calls 
on them to applaud, and they cheer after a strange 
method. Then he uses his head on a Kabyle head ; 
having the advantage of skill and skull, he pushes his 
antagonist over. The crowd laughs. He then drops 
his snake, picks up a large piece of limestone, calls 
out of the crowd some one conspicuously ragged to 
test its soundness. Then, with a hideous face and 
cabalistic talk — his face made more horrible by a long 
wire running out of his mouth through a hole in his 
cheek — he slaps his naked abdomen with the stone, and 
finally breaks it in twain. Then we have some jug- 
gling ; then he gouges out one of his eyes and puts 
it back, whereat all the rascally raggedness rages in 
rapture. He has an eye to his exchequer. He rests 
his lungs and limbs by passing round his tambourine. 
He obtains some sous. The least I had in my clothes 
was a silver half-franc. I thought of the recent decision 
of the Supreme Court. I knew there was an implied 
contract for specie. I felt that specie was the legal tender 
abroad, and I paid it. When I put it in, he made me 
quite a hero ; danced round the ring with it, and pro- 
ceeded with greater activity to discourse to his snake- 
ship, and prance about his prostrate companion in the 
ragged ring. What all this means, I leave to those 
versed in the lore of African Fetishism. 

Many of the negroes here are not of our Congo- 
Guinea kind. They have straight noses, and other 
features regular and handsome. They are from Soudan, 
or Abyssinia. Especially is that the case with the dark 



134 Difficulty of permanent African Conquest, 

servants whom we see attending the Moorish women in 
the streets. But most of the negroes are like those in 
America ; if possible, more black. I saw one yesterday 
in the cafe, where the Timbuctoo negroes congregate 
for coffee, who was so unctuously black that he actually 
shone. We have heard of objects ' dark with excess of 
light.' Light may blind. But some of these Timbucto.o 
people, fresh from the desert or beyond it, are light with 
excess of dark. But I do not perceive that, as a class, 
although they mingle with other classes, they hold 
relatively any better position, socially or otherwise, than 
the negro in America. The negro here of the Guinea 
type, is the American negro all over. He or she is 
vain, jolly, and subservient ; likes gaudy colours, banjo- 
music, and a diabolical, mystical sort of religion, full of 
emotion and superstition. 

But I must leave this topic until we visit the Desert, 
if, indeed, the wars down South permit the journey. 
Not that I expect to find the southern boundary of 
Algeria. That is as fickle and as faintly marked as 
the sands of Sahara, which are moved by every wind. 
Even the French itineraries, while they give metes and 
bounds to Algeria, on north, east, and west, naively 
say: ' Au sud^ elle a pour Ihnite^ bien vague encored 
So vague in fact is this southern country, and the rule 
over it, that one wonders why so many French lives 
have been given to the fortification and colonization 
of French power there, until he remembers the eventful 
history of Algeria. Then he would not wonder. It is 
hard to hold water in a sieve, or to chase and capture 
the wind. It is equally hard to conquer such a people, 
or such a number of tribes, independent and nomadic, 
as make up Algeria. The people, besides, are so un- 
European in habit, and so different in religion, that it 
will take years, if not ages, to crystallize the alien 
domination, and introduce the new rule. The Mussul- 



Enumeration of African Populations, 135 

mans alone number over 2,000,000, without counting 
the tribes of the Desert. The Kabyles, whose country 
on the east, in the mountains, we shall visit, number 
700,000. They were the last to be conquered, and the 
reason was that they had and have a Democracy. 
They have local self-government, elect by majorities, 
and have a confederation. The Arabs number 1,3 9 1 ,8 1 2, 
and are divided into 1200 tribes, and these tribes are 
broken into 10,000 among themselves. The Sahara 
has a population living a nomadic life, or cultivating 
the oases, of 600,000 — all Arabs, and numbering 200 
tribes. Of course a great many tribes are so errant and 
belligerent, so free and so useless for commerce or 
conquest, that the French do not look after them. 
Still we have accounts of French officers and adventur- 
ous merchants, pushing their way over the deserts, 
making treaties or trades with tribes or caravans, and 
having in view the French domination. But it will 
be a long time before the Azguers, Hoggards, Airs, or, 
to include them all, the extreme Berbers, or Touaregs, 
acknowledge French power, or succumb to French 
arms. The French may tap the avenues of trade on 
the oases, and establish trading laws and interchanges 
with Soudan by caravans ; and even, now and then, 
with a five months' journey over the desert, reach 
Timbuctoo ; but there is no power, not sympathetic 
with these tribes by habitude and faith, which will 
ever hold them steadily in subserviency or in tribute. 

The history of this country illustrates this statement. 
I need not go into it at length. Whoever first found 
Algeria, or Numidia, or Barbary, Libya, or Mauritania, 
or Africa, or what name or nation soever it is called in 
history, and undertook to hold its tribes in thrall, 
never succeeded except in a small measure, upon the 
coast, until the Arabs came. They had the nomadic 
habits and the same instincts, traditions, and blood. 



136 History of Conquests in Africa. 

They brought with them a rehgion which captured 
the Oriental imagination and held Algeria. What 
Carthage could not hold ; what the Romans, with 
their colonizing genius, could not retain ; what the 
Vandals, coming hither in thousands, did not control 
a hundred years ; what the Greeks, by their pliancy 
and with able generalship, held only for 150 years — 
the Arabs captured easily under their common sym- 
pathy and religious zealotry. ' Paradise before you ! 
Hell behind!' cried out the followers of the Faith, 
and under this shibboleth they held, as they had 
captured, Algiers, even Morocco, and even to the 
heart of the desert and beyond, where the Romans 
never ventured. The Arabs became the masters of 
North Africa. Indeed they never left Europe till the 
year Columbus discovered America. Had America 
been known to them, before 1492, New York might 
have had her ancient mosques and San Francisco her 
alhambras ! Pilgrims, from the farthest East and West, 
might have — 

" Trod with religious feet the burning sands 
Of Araby and Mecca's stony soil." 

The Turks when they came to Algiers only con- 
tinued the Mahomedan rule. When, in 1830, France 
landed her 38,000 men from her 25 ships in the Bay 
at Sidi Ferruch (whose black rocks we saw some ten 
miles west of Algiers, on the coast), and fought the 
battle of Staoueli, on the 19th of June, 1830 — on the 
site of the Trappist monastery, where we spent a 
Sunday ; and when she drove the 40,000 resisting 
Arabs from the field with the bayonet, and crowned 
the battle by a pursuit which took Fort I'Empereur 
and the Casbah, which commands Algiers — then and 
there ended the rule of the Deys, and then was begun 
for Algiers a new career ! How long will it last, and 



A nticipations, 137 



how far will it extend ? These are not for the tourist's 
pen, but the politician's ken. 

In my next chapter, avoiding historic talk, I will 
venture to describe my visit to these battle-grounds, 
to the Trappists, to the Moorish cemeteries, and the 
tombs and marabouts. That chapter, at least, will 
be freshened by out-door country air and new ex- 
periences. 



138 




CHAPTER IX. 



ALGIERS— GARDENS, TOMBS, CUSTOMS, ETC. 

I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was 
sweet to my taste." — Can. ii. 3. 

PROMISED an out-door excursion, out 
of the heat and dust of Algiers, and into 
the hills and among the vegetable wonders 
and beauties which surround the city. Our 
first trip shall be to the Jardin d'Essai. This garden 
lies upon the east side of the bay, and is reached by 
a road along its shore. It is about three miles to the 
garden. The railroad clips off a palmy side of the 
garden next to the sea. The grounds now belong to 
a company, who are compelled to keep them open to 
the public, and who have turned their establishment 
into a commercial adventure. It was started by the 
Government, somewhat after the manner of similar 
gardens at Paris, London, and Washington, for the 
collection and acclimatization of all the rare grains, 
plants, trees, fruits, and flowers. It has within its 
domain six thousand different species, and has distri- 
buted three millions of plants. To this place we 
found many omnibuses running. As the day is 
Friday — the Mahomedan sabbath — these vehicles 
are filled in great part by the Moors of the city, who 
go out to the cemeteries and there have their picnics 
among the tombs. As one of the largest cemeteries 
is in this neighbourhood, the omnibuses are full. It is 
not a little significant to see the French peasant in his 
blue blouse, or the French woman in her plain frock, 



Algerian Omnibuses on the Mahomedmi Sabbath, 139 

elbow the wives of the Moors, who are dressed in their 
bundles of white muslin, and only their eyes visible 
through the lattices of white ! The very names of 
the omnibuses are significant : ' A Mon Idee,' ' La 
Bien Aimee,' and ' II Trovatore.' It looks as if Civi- 
lization, riding in an omnibus, were crowding the exclu- 
sive Orient out of its ancient customs. It seems as if 
the old mode of dressing here were kept up more for 
coquetry and affectation, than for the seclusion from 
vulgar eyes of those houri who are supposed to be 
within the folds of their ample mantles and trowsers. 
On our way to the garden we meet Arab horsemen 
dropped into their abundant clothes between their 
high saddles. They look rather soiled and dusty. 
These Arabs wear a high turban, banded with camel- 
hair ropes. Sometimes they have a gun neatly swung 
over their backs. If they happen to be sheikhs or 
other men of consequence, they have followers, or a 
cavalcade of them. It is quite romantic to see one of 
these devotees of Mahomet — as the engraving illus- 
trates — fully armed and robed, suddenly stop, and 
turning toward Mecca, pray ! 

The road is a cloud of dust. The carouba trees 
which line the road need to be washed in a shower. 
They, too, are dusty. So are the dark legs of the 
Kabyles, trudging homeward to the mountains, on 
and behind their camels and donkeys. Occasionally 
we meet Kabyles mounted upon their donkeys. They 
generally sit as near the tail as possible. Having 
emptied their sacks of wheat, charcoal, sheepskins, 
or olives, they have a cute way of pushing their feet 
into their vacant sacks for stirrups. Some of the 
donkeys are smaller than the Kabyles themselves. 
The picture is very funny. It looks inverted; for 
the donkeys ought to be on the Kabyle back! 
Talking of the Kabyle back, I saw a curious instru- 



1 40 The gratte dos of the Kabyle — and of A rgyll. 

ment which they used for scratching their backs. 
Why they scratch — whether it is the itch produced 
by the African sun, by the long woollen burnous or 
by the fleas, or what — yet they use a wooden instru- 
ment, shaped in size and form like a wooden salad 
spoon, called a ''gratte dos ; ' and with it a deft Kabyle 
can reach over his shoulder or around his body, and 
give a good, honest ' old scratch.' This is much more 
economical (if not so satisfactory) than the Duke of 
Argyll's plan. He planted posts over the county 
which he owned in Scotland, against which the 
peasants relieved their itching bodies, and for which 
they said : ' God bless the Duke of Argyll ! ' 

On our way to the garden we cannot but remark 
the French appearance of the houses. Even in the 
cafes, frequented by the natives, where the cross- 
legged are sitting, sipping coffee and smoking, there 
is the French style. On the outside of the walls are 
painted the foaming cup, and the pipes crossed and 
tied with a ribbon, and some balls, indicating billiards. 
We perceive that the plane tree or. sycamore and the 
mulberry are quite common; and lining the roads 
in the meadows are orchards of bananas. In fact, 
the banana is a great crop here. The leaves are a 
little brown and ragged from the harshness of the 
past winter. I notice that they have to be guarded, 
and are, like other tropical plants, screened from the 
north winds, by tall, stately rows of cypresses, especially 
on the sides of the Sahel Mountain, or between it and 
the sea. As far up as the beautiful temple which 
crowns the mountain — a white, Moorish-looking 
building, but, in fact, a theological seminary of the 
Catholic faith, you may see these evidences of tropical 
growth, but guarded by the cypress lines. My friend, 
Dr. Bennet, who is looking after sunbeams in winter, 
for his patients, and for his own satisfaction as a 



Dr, Bennefs botanical Eureka, 141 

savant, at once concludes that Algiers suffers from 
the north-west wind. The trees thus exposed, show 
by their inclination, as well as by their slow growth 
and imperfect development, what the Doctor desires 
to know about the Algerian climate. He observes 
few orange trees and no lemons ; and everywhere — 
even where palms exist — the cypress is there to shelter. 
He compares, or rather contrasts Algiers with the 
Riviera. He notices that while his favourite health 
station at Mentone is comparatively free from the 
mistral and north winds, those winds pick up mois- 
ture in coming over the ocean hither. The Doctor 
will find many evidences, a posteriori^ to strengthen 
his conclusions before he leaves. I refer those in- 
terested, to the new edition of his book, which will 
contain incidents of his search in the regions of 
Algiers after a better climate. Just now, under the 
hot sun, and with all the ardour of a lover of botany 
and horticulture, and with a view to perfect his garden 
at Mentone, he is absorbed in this garden at Algiers. 
I have already endeavoured to depict his garden. It 
is hung almost in the warm air of the Riviera. It is 
warmed by the geothermal as well as by the solar 
caloric, and irrigated plenteously from above. The 
Doctor, being thus interested, dashes into the merits 
and demerits of this African Paradise in a way that 
makes me wonder. Now he points out the bamboo 
and cork trees ; now he astounds me with the declar- 
ation that those groups of flowers are the mesem- 
bryanthea. Now he drops his yellow umbrella; out 
comes his note-book. Eureka ! he has found, not 
only one, but two, three, four — a whole colonnade of 
new palms — palms which to him heretofore were 
habitants of the conservatory and small in stature — ^ 
lo ! here are avenues of them ; some native like the 
draccona ; some from the Isle of Bourbon ; some 



14a Enormous Ostriches and their Prices. 

date-palms in fruit and flower, and some so old they 
are — without date; every variety, and so arranged 
are they, that the tall green plumes with the golden 
blossom alternate for nearly a mile of avenue in a 
double row on each side — with the wide, waving leaves 
of the lesser kind. ' Every variety,' says the Doctor, 
' is here — proof that there is a hot summer rather than 
a warm winter.' Their rough stalks and yellow flowers 
— as well as the little scrub-palms which we see all 
round Algiers, indigenous to this soil — are critically 
examined. Here are lofty brethren from Gabon, cul- 
tivated by the side of the timid palmetto from 
Carolina, the one as proud as Lucifer, the other as 
meek as Moses. In fact, the palms have taken the 
palm in the horticultural ' essai.' They thrive next 
to the cocoa and the banana, although trees from 
Bombay, Brazil, Australia — all those trees which, like 
the palm, love to have their heads hot and feet moist 
— thrive prodigiously ; for here is irrigation and plenty 
of sun, even in April. 

While the Doctor is making his observations, we 
perceive some ostriches through the bamboo avenues. 
They are enormous in size. They are running about 
in their wiry enclosures. We approach them. They 
plume themselves greatly on our admiration. They 
step off, lifting their wing in a most tragical way, with 
a long stride and swing, as if they had on buskins, 
and had Hamlet on the brain. They are priced in 
the catalogue for twelve hundred francs. A young 
one can be had for fifty dollars ! M. C. Riviere, 
Director of the Garden, reports great success in rearing 
these ostriches. Within the palisade enclosure, con- 
taining a quantity of fine sand, the female ostrich 
deposits her eggs. She seems uneasy, and seeks a 
suitable place. She forms a small hillock of sand, 
slightly concave at the top, and lays one egg in it, to 



Male and Female Inctibation, 143 

which she afterwards adds others. She lays every two 
days, for two or three months, with an interval of 
repose. Incubation lasts forty days, during which 
time the male and female sit alternately. On 12th 
of March, before we were there, five were hatched, 
and three the day after. The male, like a gentleman 
as he is, takes great interest in the incubations, and 
only leaves the egg when pressed by hunger, and then 
the female takes the place, but not for such long 
periods. An extra circulation goes on in the un- 
covered portions of the male's body, to generate the 
heat necessary for the process. 

Leaving these pretty little birdlings to their laying 
of eggs, hatching of young, and digestion of brickbats 
and horse-shoes, we meet another illustration of the 
animal kingdom belonging to these shores — a man 
with his two veiled wives and two children. We see 
that the wives are young. They are painted between 
the eyebrows, so as to make the brows seem one brow. 
Their hands are red with henna, and their finger- 
nails are black. They wear red socks. The children 
have their hair stained red. We hardly have time 
to admire before the Doctor bursts upon us^ with a 
magnolia grandiflora rotundifolia I He has found 
it by the banks of the lake! We look his rotund 
majesty up ; and a choir of blackbirds and nightingales 
sing a pleasant lyric from a grove, deep in shadow, 
in praise of the wonderful glories of this tropical 
garden ! We find soldiers in red trousers, handling 
the mattock and spade, and digging up bananas for 
transplanting. The French soldier is here permitted 
to do work; quite a reform, and worth considering. 
Other rare plants we see ; immense scarlet geraniums, 
the fletcr-de-lys, the Arabian fig, climbing plants like 
the African ivy, some in flower, hanging on great 
palms forty feet high, and purple in bloom ; jasmine 



144 'The Snows of Africa. 

in trees^ all blooming ; Barbary figs in profusion ; 
and^ to crown our view, an olive of monstrous pro- 
portions, literally garlanded with the white rose ; then 
we visit the hot-houses, a dozen or more, where 
every exotic the vegetable world produces is to be 
found. 

At length we wend our way along paths where 
water-lilies are seen in lakes, and the air is heavy with 
odour, to the grand entrance. Here we find under 
the shade of a great plane-tree across the dusty road, 
at the Restaurant des Platanes, several Arabs playing 
draughts — not for strong liquor, for the Koran for- 
bids it, but for coffee. An Alsatian — an old sol- 
dier — with two wooden legs and two crutches, is 
sitting at the gate. While waiting for the Doctor 
we learn that he was a soldier in the Algerian wars 
as early as 1847, ^^^ ^^at he lost his legs by their 
freezing in the snows of Africa ! He had been pur- 
suing the Kabyles, in the Atlas, and we have had 
demonstration to the eye that the snows are there 
yet, although the sun is African and 80° Fahrenheit. 
We sit here observing the omnibuses go by, crowded 
with the motley loads. It is said that the railway 
in India is killing caste. The omnibus is doing the 
same here. 

I spoke of the cemetery. On our return to the 
city we called in to see it. At the entrance we found 
some vendors of Algerian delicacies. Then lying 
upon the grass and lazing about the tombs we see 
some Maltese sailors anxious, like ourselves, to see 
the novelties. I have a pictorial illustration, better 
than my pen can do, of the scene. The ladies of 
our party are attracted to a little Jewess of ten, her 
jacket broidered in gold, and her Greek cap set upon 
the side of her head jauntily. We go up the hill-side, 
among the faithful. We are met by a turbaned white- 



The Valley of the Femme Sauvage. 145 

beard. He conducts us into a small mosque. We 
peep within. Finally, we take off our shoes and 
venture in. Here are families of Moors in groups, 
sitting cross-legged on their mats ; mostly women and 
children. They are unveiled. As I protrude my dark 
sombrero within the sacred precinct, I catch the look, 
half reproachful, half coquettish, of a fair girl, of dark, 
almond-shaped eyes, whose face is stained with ceru- 
lean tints, and whose ankles and wrists are heavy with 
gold and silver ornaments. Her look seemed to say, 
' Oh ! you — you — naughty sir ! You dare ; how dare 
you ? Tut ! tut ! Oh ! ' Of course this is an ' ima- 
ginary conversation,' to which I respond by going 
further. I actually go through the little court, and 
under the ground, where are lights aflame, and two 
unpleasant bodies recently buried, wrapped in shawls ; 
the odour impleasant, and the m.ourning not poignant. 
The families laugh, chat, giggle, eat, drink, and have 
what is called in New York, a jamboree over the 
bones of their kin. Some try modestly to put on 
their head-gear ; some turn their faces to the wall, and 
with eyes askance, seem embarrassed ; but, on the 
whole, they enjoy the intrusion. All at once a wild 
looking old man begins to rail at them for their shame- 
lessness. Our conductor says that he is touched in 
the head. I am not so certain about it. He may 
be a fanatical Moslem. Religion makes people wild 
without being exactly crazy. He raises quite a 
hubbub, and as we leave we hear him still railing — 
a voice from the tombs — ' a doleful sound.' 

We breathed easier when we were again on our pro- 
menade ct la voiture. Now we go to the Valley 
of the Femme Sauvage. The story of the valley is, 
that a beautiful lady was crossed in love ; left Algiers 
to assuage her grief among the mountains ; came to 
this vale twenty years ago ; her money ran out ; she 



146 The Blackberry African. 

cultivated lemons ; she was soured of the world ; for she 
never spoke to any one. She gave away lemonade, 
and the good people who drank it gave her some- 
thing. The story is true ; but the name Sauvage, 
which might imply a wild woman, is interpreted to 
mean only a timid creature — one who could not 
grapple and battle in life with its harsh experiences. 
The road to her former home is very charming. Her 
house, however, is closed. The brambles fill her little 
garden. She is dead! The valley is sheltered from 
the north wind, and Flora is abundant and Ceres 
advanced. The pomegranate is here, ready almost to 
blush, and the fig is immense in size, and far in 
advance of the fig of the southern shore of Europe. 
The nightingale sings in the groves of the lentiscus. 
Along our upward path, the rock-rose (so common 
in both its white and red dress, all through Algiers) 
decorates the banks and bespangles the rocks. Every- 
where, abo^'e the shrubs of the country, tangled with 
the white hawthorn, fighting its democratic way, and 
even fighting its neighbour, is the prickly pear ; every- 
where is the blackberry. It is the bramble of all 
nations — as cosmopolitan as the chicken ! It asserts 
its right to live and flourish. Why not ? It is the 
plain, common blackberry of America, and does not 
care for the aristocracies and regalities of the European 
flora! Why not, at least here, may not the black- 
berry be African. The earth has a red tinge and the 
rock is silicious sandstone. We pass by the jail-like 
Moorish country-houses, windowless, but with port- 
holes barred, and with the same inner quadrangular 
court observed by us in the city houses. The mul- 
berries as yet look bleak and untropical. Like the 
chestnut trees in February on the mountains of Cor- 
sica, which alone left the impression of winter — they 
are leafless. Strange, but true it is, that only in 



Rock-cut Tomb in fonn of a Temple, 147 

the Genoese Riviera have we seen all the trees in 
winter covered with the garniture of summer. The 
sunbeams were ever with them. Not, of course, by 
nighty but ever by day. My learned friend holds 
that all these places so bepraised, which, like Algiers, 
are celebrated for a temperature equable by night and 
day, are not so good for health. Algiers is not so far 
south as Nice ; and at the latter place the nights are 
cool, if the days are warm. He argues that the earth 
is turned from the sun half the time, when it is night, 
and that thus nature, which does all things best, teaches 
us that times of repose, times of cool, tonical rest, 
are needed for recreation. Hence he argues that, as 
at Mentone and elsewhere on the Riviera, the moun- 
tains shut in the coast from the north winds, and 
make the night cool, if the day be warm — ^there are 
more health-giving influences than at Algiers ; and 
that protection from the North is worth half-a-dozen 
degrees of latitude towards the South, for sanitary 
restoration and vegetable production. 

These are results from observation thus far. We 
may, in our progress after winter sunbeams, find more 
reasons for appreciating Algiers. Certainly, wherever - 

the spot is guarded, there the conditions of a sani- \ 

tarium appear. We hope to find this further inland. 

One thing was very striking in the Valley of the 
Wild Woman. Across the road, amidst the tangle of 
vegetation, where the lemon was hid in the nooks 
from the wind, there appeared on the hill-side, cut in 
the rocks in the shape of a temple, supported by 
Egyptian or Assyrian figures of women — a splendid 
tomb ! At the top of" the temple was the form of 
an eagle. The grotto beneath, in which some body 
or bodies once reposed, was covered with foliage and 
vines. But there the old sculpture remains. It will 
thus stand till some earthquake — no rare occurrence 

L 2 



14B The Cafe Chantant of the French Quarter, 

here — disturbs the tricks which art has played with 
nature. 

In our observations about Algiers, I am at a loss 
whither to turn for incidents. I find enough to write 
about — novel to a stranger — ^from my window at the 
hotel. Glancing out upon the bay — where I perceive 
the divers going down in their armour to dig out 
the accumulated sand which chokes the harbour — I 
could find for a pen-picture a company of a hundred 
' peculiar ' people watching the performance ; or, 
moving upon the waters of the bay, what is it I 
see ? Not a man walking ? Is the miracle repeated 
here ? It is a marine velocipedestrian. He sits 
securely and works a water-wheel below him with his 
feet, which propels the cigar-shaped canoe, to which 
the wheel is fixed. This is a dim description ; but as 
I see at a distance and from my window, I cannot 
do it better. 

If you would know Algiers better, stray into the 
French quarter in the evening and visit the Cafe 
Chantant. You will hear excellent music and see 
good acting. You may call for coffee and cognac ; 
or drop your sou into the basket of the half-dressed 
cantatrice and danseuse, who comes down from the 
stage among the audience for her coppers. If, how- 
ever, you would prefer French experiences in Paris, 
and are here to study the Arabs and their melody, go 
with Hahmoud, as we do. 

Upon a raised table, amidst a crowd of fifty cofFee- 
drinking and cigarette-smoking natives, sitting cross- 
legged, are the musicians — three — two with tambou- 
rines, or drums, and one with a sort of hurdy-gurdy, 
with a bagpipe sound, or flageolet squeak, or some- 
thing. The music is barbaric, but a Kabyle brother 
starts up and keeps time. He is bare of foot and 
shaven of head. He has two stringy handkerchiefs 




Interior of Mohamedan House^ 



The Devil om Algerine Dervish. 149 



in his hands. He dances, and oh ! heavens ! what 
dancing ! He wheels, he steps, he jumps, he cavorts ; 
he sways his handkerchiefs, as a coquette her fan, as 
if to say : ' Am I not all grace ? ' He astounds you 
by an unexpected spasmodic hitch, as if somebody 
had stuck an awl into him ; then halts, as if he were 
injured or astonished by being suddenly jerked out 
of his burnous or cuticle. Then he tries to bend at 
once both backward and forward, gracefully ; and with 
a leap in the air, arms akimbo, he subsides into a 
quiet Kabyle in a corner, to enjoy a smoke, while 
another 'takes his place. This is Kabyle recreation. 

Now for something more horrible, which I almost 
sicken to paint. Hahmoud insists on our going up 
into the old city to see some Mahomedan rites. The 
devil himself is an Algerine dervish. These are not 
the dancing, whirling dervishes of Constantinople. 
There are several sects of Moslems peculiar to Morocco 
and Algiers. I think there are seven. I believe 
Hahmoud belongs to this one. He did not like to 
confess it; but I saw him, as we entered, quietly 
salute the chief der\^sh with a peculiar embrace and 
kiss. To this performance the ladies went ; but they 
had to go up stairs into one of the galleries of the 
inner quadrangular court of the Moorish house, 
among the Moorish women. Several nationalities 
were represented in our crowd. Expectation was on 
tip-toe to see and hear. It was a hot night, and 
the room was close and full of people. Some two 
dozen Moors were present. It is dark in the room ; 
only two dim candles and a charcoal fire, which 
smouldered in a skillet. The object of the latter ap- 
peared to be to warm up the drums which the dervishes 
beat, and which, when the sheepskin got loose, they 
heated over the fire to make it tight. Perhaps there 
were some fumes in the skillet to make the dervishes 



150 Horrible performance of Dervishes. 

devilish. While our ladies above were taking coffee, 
very black and sweet, in nice httle china cups, in the 
galleries^ with their Arab hostesses, we sweat down- 
stairs, leaning expectant in the dark against the white- 
washed walls or against the pillars of the court. 

Now the chief begins. He chants passages of the 
Koran, while, standing around him semi-circularly, 
a half-dozen respond with whining tones. Others, 
with their drums, sit cross-legged in a row, before a 
little stand with two long, lighted wax tapers. A 
monotonous drum chorus begins ; then a long-haired 
dervish bounds up like a jack-in-the-box, as if shot 
in the rear ; and, being up, a brother unbinds his 
garments and spreads out his hair, and then he jumps 
up gently at first, keeping time to the music. His 
head bows as his body sways ; then faster and faster, 
till his hair flies around wildly and his hands are 
swinging insanely. He is joined by another who is 
more staid. The last looks as if he ought to know 
better. The first one, exhausted, falls down in epilepsy 
and is carried out. No. 2 is joined by No. 3 ; then 
No. 4 appears, and, by this time. No. i re-appears, 
and the group collectively, like a brutal nondescript 
— are all at it. No. i having worked himself wild 
again stops a moment. The others stop. A brother 
appears from behind with a red hot bar of iron. 

No. I laps it with his tongue. I see it smoke. My 
blood runs icily. He slaps the incandescent iron with 
hand and foot. Then the ministering brother offers 
him to eat some delicate stems or pieces of glass. 
He crunches and swallows them. His digestion is 
excellent. If it had been candy, and he had been a 
juvenile, he could not have relished it more ! Then 
No. 2, the intelligent, stops and has a long wire run 
through his tongue and out of each cheek, protruding- 
four inches. He snarls meanwhile like a caged hyena. 



Fanatic Diabolism. 151 



Then No. 3, who has been rather quiescent, com- 
mences to snap and bark Hke a hungry dog — eyes 
popping out, and face all savage and imbruted. 
Barked? — He howled, he growled. Finally, the 
ministering brother comes out with one of the thick 
leaves of the prickly pear, a foot long, in form of an 
ellipse, an inch thick, and full of thorns ; all the 
dervishes drop down on all fours and are biting at it 
and into it, and crunching it. 

The froth of their mad mouths hangs to the green 
prickles and slavers the green rind. Ugh ! What 
more ? No. 4, in an ecstacy of fanatic diabolism, 
swallows a scorpion. Whether they have taken out 
the poison, or whether the afflatus is so enormously 
exciting, that poison is innoxious ; or what, God 
knows ! We summon Hahmoud in haste ; beckon 
our ladies from above in the dark, and seek relief 
and breath in the narrow streets. Upon these in- 
fernal orgies we have nothing to comment. It is as 
near making the human a wild animal as anything 
can be. 

It is worse than the negro performances every 
Wednesday, upon the seaside, at the Jardin d'Essai. 
Here all the blacks of Algiers come to celebrate 
the fete of Nissam. It begins when the beans begin 
to blacken. Up to that time the negroes abstain 
from eating beans. The ' sacred ' is mixed with the 
profane in this festival. They celebrate Belal, a sainted 
black female slave, who had been in Mohammed's 
family. They pray and gorge with food. An ox, 
covered with flowers and gay foulards, is sacrificed. 
They dance round it seven times before they give the 
death stroke. As the ox dies, whether soon or not, 
in agony or not, so is the prognostication of good or 
evil. Then begins the negro dancing. Then the pro- 
phetic negresses, retiring under a tent near the sea, 



152 A Christian Martyr immured alive. 

are waited upon by the crowd to learn their futures. 
The crowd bring chickens to the prophetess. She 
wrings oiF their : heads, and throws the body into the 
waves. If the '/headless rooster ' swims and struggles 
— so ; if otherwise — not. That is clear. Then begins 
more dancing and chanting^ and a wild sort of music, 
called Derdeba. It should be called Diablerie, for 
it is a jolly row. Thus '.these black devotees of Mo- 
hammed outstrip all \hi rest of their co-religionists, 
except the brutal Deryishes. To beat them^ I defy 
all the powers on or under the earth ! Justice, how- 
ever, to the better class of white Mohammedans 
demands that I should say, that they disapprove of 
these mumbo-jumbo /orgies. Especially have they 
endeavoured to crush out these negro extrava- 
ganzas. 

The negroes are hete pretty much as elsewhere — 
not of much account. I say this not from American 
prejudice ; for where you see such mixtures as here, 
you forget all about colour and caste. It is the testi- 
mony of others. A volume I have opened says, in 
speaking of the races here, that the Kabyle is a good 
worker of the soil ; the Biskri a fair boatman and 
porter ; the Mzabi is busy as a baker, butcher, grocer 
and small merchant ; the Laghonati is a laborious 
bearer of oil ; but ' le negre blanchit les maisons, ou 
exerce quelque grossiere Industrie.' He whitewashes 
or does worse, or nothing. That is about all of him, 
here. • 

One object worthy of note is the cast of the body 
of the Christian martyr slave. Refusing to abjure his 
religion, he was cast, not into a dungeon, but in 
plaster ; not pounded, but fixed alive in the mortar, 
and thus smothered in a horrible way. Rumours of 
this tragedy ran over Europe at the time ; for it was 
done by one of the piratical Deys of the last century. 



The Community of La Trappe near Algiers. 153 

But it was verified only the other day, when the remains 
were found on removing the wall of the old fort. The 
body was, of course, dust; but the mould was there, 
showing how the skin, lips, and brow, the very bones 
and attitude, took the form of agony under the terrible 
torture. 

Our next outdoor venture is along the sea to 
the west of Algiers. We go to the battle grounds 
— to which I have referred — where first the French 
in 1830 landed and fought. We go to see the har- 
bours where the pirates lay in wait for their prey, and 
a print of which I have inserted herein. We go to 
see the Community of La Trappe, some fifteen 
miles from Algiers ; and we go on Sunday, Our 
way is past the barracks of the soldiers, through 
Mustafa Inferior, much improved and improving ; and 
out of the city on a road just freshened with last night's 
rain, and with the ever present spray from the sound- 
ing shore. The road looks newly dressed in asphodel, 
convolvulus, and marigold. How the marigold wor- 
ships the sun ! What numbers of them. The meadows 
are like a cloth of gold. The great breakers thunder 
against the black rocks, those basaltic ribs of Atlas, 
which protrude to the seas and resist the thumps of 
Neptune ! The sea dashes far into the rocks, and 
forms numberless cascades. All along we see the 
little palm scrub. Dr. Bennet says : ' They seem to 
spread out their fan-like hands in welcome.' I respond : 
'Therefore is our hospitable hand called the palm.' 
Surely, it is so. There is more than one meaning 
in the Bible phrase, ' Ethiopia shall hold out its 
hands unto God.' Twenty fingers there are to this 
palm ; all spread out in the most cordial, reverent 
way. Beyond us already looms up a mountain range, 
like the Estrelles, near Cannes. At its foot is the bay 
where the French debarked in 1835. They were four 



1 54 Forts of the Moorish Corsairs. 

weeks coming from Toulon to this point in their 
ships. At that I wonder not, if such a sea prevailed 
then as now. We forget to look in front at the great 
'Tomb of the Christian,' arising to our sight. We 
forget to note the sportsmen, with pointers, hunting 
quail. We forget the acres of geranium in full flower, 
acres on acres, illimitably, planted here for the essence 
of its leaf. We are hardly drawn to observe the red 
gladiolus, the rock rose, the arbutus, ciscus, lavender, 
holly, prickly broom in yellow flower, hiding the moor- 
like country for leagues, and the rosemary, so fragrant. 
Is not the sea all in white, blooming in tempestuous 
grandeur, and throwing its blossoms in a wealth of 
luxuriance far over the dark rocks, and even into our 
faces upon the highway ? And can we forget to see 
the hand of man, as well as of God, in history, written 
in these rocky inlets and island breakwaters ? Here, 
upon these wild rocks, we see the ancient Moorish forts ! 
Under their guns once lay the Corsairs, fierce, daring 
men, ^linked to one virtue and a thousand crimes.' 
Behind these islands, and in the coves, lurked other 
'coves' — the marine devils, whose diabolism brought 
Christianity to the doors of the mosque and gave 
Algiers to France. 

And yet, when we think that only seventy years 
ago, there were 30,000 Christian white slaves held 
in and about Algiers, is it not marvellous that the 
civilized nations allowed this so long ? We have 
seen an army of 20,000 men and an expenditure of fifty 
millions by a Christian nation to rescue in Abyssinia 
half a dozen silly missionaries. But never a hand 
raised to rescue 30,000 Christians who toiled at the 
galleys, or worked on the jetties, or in the fields and 
in the hot sun, at the call of Mohammedan masters ! 
Well, I feel a Httle proud that the United States, 
when an infant, had one blow at these people^ 



Reception by the Trappists. 155 



and won their respect by thoroughly thrashing 
them. 

But we are seeking the Trappists. They have been 
established since 1843. They have 4000 hectares. 
There are two and a half hectares to an acre. The 
heath, like the land along the coast, changes at once. 
It smiles sweetly, as soon as we approach their do- 
main. There are 112 members of the community. 
We drive up to the portal through a line of caroubas 
and mulberries. We behold over the portal an image 
in white, of the Mother of God, and within it, the 
Saviour upon the cross, and the skull and bones ! 
Upon one side is written in French : ' Celui qui n'a 
pas le temps de penser a son salut, aura I'eternite 
pour s'en repentir.' On the other : ' All the pleasures 
of earth are not of as much value as one penitential 
tear.' All through the establishment are mottos to 
teach the frailty of all earthly hopes, and the over- 
ruling duties which pertain to the other world. 

In one thing we are disappointed — our ladies are 
interdicted from the convent. A courteous Brother, 
in brown sack and capuchon, meets us, helps us to 
descend from the carriage, invites us into an ante- 
room, and bids us wait until the Brothers rise from 
their breakfast. It is 2 p.m. The Brothers begin their 
day at i a.m., and have gone for a short rest after 
breakfast. Our ladies must remain outside, and we 
go through. Our first observation is a cluster of 
nine palms, all growing from one stock, apparently, 
on a mound. They form a rare picture. In fact, 
we bring home a photograph of it. 

In the first room we enter, we perceive a govern- 
ment chart of that fight, which occurred on this very 
ground of Staouel, 14th June, 1830, and which re- 
sulted in the success of the French. We meet num- 
bers of the Brethren. They all bow. None, not even 



156 Trappist Industry and Hospitality. 

our conductors, are allowed to talk within these walls, 
sacred to meditation. We see some in white, and 
some in brown garments. The white are the Levites 
and adminster at the altar. The others contemplate. 
All work — all do charity. Many poor are relieved 
by them. All the work of the farm, the black- 
smithing, the cooking, the making of clothes and 
sandals — all is done by the Brethren. They showed 
us their long stables of mules, horses, cows, oxen, 
and pigs, and the principle of association was most 
graphically illustrated not only in the exuberance of 
the farm production, but in the very comforts of bed 
and board by which they sleep and live. It is 
popularly thought that the Trappists are engaged in 
digging their own graves and filling them up again. I 
did not see this. Nor did I see that they mortified 
the flesh too much. Their solemn mien and formal 
manner disappeared when out of doors and out of 
their precise duties. Hahmoud, our Moorish guide, 
was with us. He had been there before. How 
merrily twinkled the eye of Father Joseph, as he 
offered Hahmoud some wine. 'No, my reHgion for- 
bids,' said Hahmoud ; and then with some quiet jokes 
on Hahmoud's peculiar ways, the Brothers passed 
round the good wine — red and white — of their own 
vintage ; and with it the best of bread and honey, 
grapes, and almonds, all from their own lands. The 
very wax made into candles for their holy observances 
comes from their own hives, and is manufactured by 
their own hands. 

Altogether, this was a joyous visit. These good 
monks made it a white stone in our travelling calendar. 
Far aloof from the world of gain and pleasure, with 
good libraries and good consciences, no temptations 
to beset them, earning their own living by the ' sweat 
of their brows,' given to hospitality, ever constant 



Failures m adopting the Trappist life. 157 

in prayer, they live far, afar on this African coast and 
make its desert places to blossom as the rose. Surely 
they live not in vain in time, although they profess 
to live only for eternity ! 

Yet many come here and try this life and fail signally. 
Only fi\^ ia twenty succeed ! 



( 158 ) 




CHAPTER X. 

AMONG THE KABYLES. 

' And in the mountains he did feel his faith.' 

Wordsworth's ' Excursion.' 

HIS chapter is penned at Tizzi Ouzi, in 
the Kabyle country. We are now in its 
very heart. We are between Algiers and 
Fort Napoleon, The latter place is upon 
one of the highest mountains of the Eastern Atlas range. 
It is a few hours' ride on donkeys from the snow 
summits of the Djurjura. We stopped last night here, 
where I write, and we are again here to-night, after 
going through the Kabyle valleys and over their moun- 
tains to Fort Napoleon. We might have pierced Atlas 
and come out on the little paths leading either to Bougie, 
on the sea, or to Tunis. We preferred, rather than go 
further east, to return to Algiers, and visit the southern 
and western parts of the country ; perhaps go to the 
Desert before we leave for Spain. 

This village, where I rest, is somewhat French. It is 
a prominent military post in the Kabyle plains. It has 
about 250 French, and nearly 2000 native population. 
But it is not a fair sample of the Kabyle towns. We 
have to-day passed on foot through three or four towns, 
which are samples, and into their hovels or cabins. 
There is much to write about these people. But, before 
I begin, it would be well to tell why and how we came 
here. There were two incitements : — 

First. On our approaching the city of Algiers — while 
thirty miles out at sea — there appeared on the horizon, 





I J. .J 1 



tJli: 



,^^-^,^ -. -SSi - 



W 



^^mmm 



Myths of A tlas and Hercules. i ^ 9 

shutting it in, a magnificent mountain range. This 
was not on the shore. It was not the Sahel hills which 
environ Algiers and its bay. But tipped upon the top 
with silver head-gear — Kabyle style — old Atlas, the 
veritable, classic, patient Atlas, appeared ! What child, 
studying his geography, has not heard the word ? Its 
very philology is enchantment ! Atlas ! Its mention 
calls up a big, burly, muscular, round-shouldered 
person, with few clothes, whose brows are knit, whose 
biceps muscles are strained to their utmost tension, the 
adductors of whose thighs are steady under the superin- 
cumbent weight of a world ! Old Atlas ! We have seen 
his head silvered, not by the snows of time, but by the 
flakes of this past winter. We have seen his shoulders 
protrusive and burly, all garlanded with olive and ash. 
We have seen his ribs extending far out of his range 
till the sea cooled them by its hydropathic treatment. 
To-day we have been creeping, not beneath his great 
legs like pigmies under Colossus, for his pediments were 
not visible, but over his burdened shoulders and around 
his brawny neck ! Old Atlas ! What a great name 
the myth gave him in the heathen imagination ! His 
range was, to the Greek and Roman, the spine of 
the world ! Hercules came to the Riviera on the opposite 
coast. According to the pre-historic account, he went 
further, to Spain. There being killed, his army came 
here. Here they made an end of their conquests, and 
set up pillars at Gibraltar, yet called the Pillars of 
Hercules. Beyond these pillars was the flaming bound. 
There may have been rumours of the Gardens of the 
Hesperides beyond, but only rumours. Over it — 
beyond it — all was unknown ; or, if known, known 
in the Nubian geographer's account of the mare tene- 
brarum^ as the sea of gloom, beyond the horrid black 
beetling ramparts of the world, against which the shriek- 
ing and howHng waves — such as the earlier voyagers 



1 60 Greeting to the ' New A tlantis^ 

round the Cape of Good Hope describe — lashed them- 
selves in furious tempests with ghastly, grim, and 
shapeless demons ! Up to this bound, and under the 
staunch earth to its limit. Atlas held the orbis terrarum 
— bore it up amidst the raging of the elements ! Beyond 
it, therefore, in honour of Atlas, the unknown sea was 
called Atlantic ! 

Under the shadow of Atlas, as the sun sinks to the 
West, into and beyond that ocean where my heart goes 
— to the ' New Atlantis ' of Bacon — 1 send to you of 
the Western World, upborne by giants of another 
mould, I send my greeting ! 

The Atlas range runs from Tunis to the Atlantic. 
Standing as we did on the mountain at Fort Napoleon, 
we could see lying under the flashing meridian rays of 
a sun about eighty degrees of Fahrenheit, the Mediter- 
ranean, as we had seen from that unstable element 
these very mountains robed in the blue drapery of 
distance, and hanging under the light, fleecy clouds 
of the land ! So that one of our objects in coming to 
this interior Kabyle country is gratified. 

The second incitement of our coming hither is to 
see theKabyles. I confess to a strong predilection for 
them. I know they do not appear so well in history 
as the Arab. They do not dress so statuesquely. No 
sashes or cinctures bind their flowing robes like those 
of the Arabs. No fez cap or abundant turban hides 
their head. They are the common people, and there- 
fore of uncommon interest in my eye. They do the 
work, raise the grain, attend the flocks, make the local 
law, fight the fights, and hold the religion of this 
country, with as earnest a soul as any class of labourers, 
patriots, or reUgionists on the earth. They tickle the 
ribs of Atlas till he laughs with plenty. As to their 
personal appearance, their heads are generally shaven, 
except the crown, which has a short tuft of their raven- 



Statistics of Algerian P opulcitions . 



ibi 



black hair. Their dress is very primitive. They wear 
wool, summer and winter. Their sheep give them their 
Roman senatorial robe and its capuchon ornament. 
Linen and cotton they do not yet use or know. In 
sight of the telegraph, they still dress and eat, and watch 
their herds, just as Abraham did, or any other Oriental 
patriarch. They do more, and better ; they raise good 
crops, and are not nomadic. 

I have already said that they numbered 600,000. I 
should have said that they furnish one-fourth of 
what are called the ' indigenes.' Algiers is made up of 
nearly three millions of people. Of these 200,000 are 
Europeans, nearly all French. There are some 60,000 
French soldiers here. The rest of the three millions 
are Mussulmans, 2,692,812 in number; and Israelites 
about 28,000. Of these indigenes, the Kabyles seem 
to be distinct from the Arab or Moor. The illustra- 




Kabyle Man and Woman. 

tions which I have introduced are intended to represent 
these diversities. The Moor is the descendant of the 



1 62 The Arab and the Kabyle compared, 

Turk or other Mussulmans. He is distinguished from 
the Arab, because he is a ' man of the house.' He 
hves in towns and houses. The Arab Hves under the 
sky and in the tents. He sings songs about his freedom 
and his out-door tents. The Arab is very dirty. The 
Moor is proud of his ancestry. His fathers fought 
the old wars. For seven hundred years, how they 
fought the Hidalgos — has not Irving told us r The 
Arabs are distributed into tribes, called after the patro- 
nymic name. The tribes are divided and subdivided. 
The chiefs are the supreme rulers. Their domestic 
government is aristocratic. They have an hereditary 
nobility, a miUtary nobiHty, and a religious nobility. I 
mention this only to show that, while the Arabs are 
the pretentious and supercilious part of the popula- 
tion, they are not the most important indigenous 
element here, as they are generally believed to be. The 
Kabyle may or may not have the same origin and 
reTigion as the Arab ; though he has many of the same 
habits as the Arab, still he has a distinct and independent 
polity. It is democratic, on the American model : or 
rather we are, or should be, democratic on the Kabyle 
model. For is he not older than even the nomads of 
Job's era ? He goes back to the twilight of antiquity. 
He is considered, at least in Algiers, as aboriginal. Some 
hold that he is a melange of many nations. I do not 
think so ; but we shall see. His face is brown, not 
black, but varying from a light to a deep sunburnt 
brown. His features are regular. The women are, 
when young, at least, not ill-looking. They are smaller 
in proportion than the men. The latter are fine-looking, 
walk erect and gracefully, are courteous, hospitable, 
good-natured, and, as the French found, they are 
patriotic and brave. They were the last to yield to 
French power. From my window I can see the plains, 
hills, and mountains, which were ensanguined with their 



1 



Democratic Polity of the Kabyles. 163 

blood within the past five years. These mountains 
were lined with their braves, in the last great fight 
before they yielded to McMahon. The struggle was 
terrific. They are hardly yet subdued. They have 
only recently paid their tribute in cash at FortNapoleon. 
It was collected before last year, with the bayonet. 

Their polity I said was democratic. The tribes live 
in villages. You may count the villages by the hundred 
from any elevation. These villages are subdivided 
into communes, or decheras. Each dechera has as 
many karottbas as there are distinct families. The 
members of the karoubas elect a local legislator, or 
dakman, who represents the interest of his commune, 
in the djemaa. This is the local congress or parlia- 
ment. The president of this body is an Amin. He is 
mayor of the village, and possesses judicial and military 
powers. He is elected by the Assembly and has to be 
re-elected every year. I asked one of the French 
ofi[icers of Napoleon how the election was conducted 
by the villagers ? He said that they meet en masse, and 
vote viva voce. The majority rule. The Amin is the 
intermediary between the French and the people, and 
as such he is held responsible. I saw a dozen of these 
mayors of villages, sitting serenely cross-legged in the 
court at Fort Napoleon, giving their advice as to local 
matters to the officer, while several hundred anxious 
suitors were waiting for the decisions. 

Again, the Amins of the tribe name an Amin of 
Amins. He is the political chief or president of the 
united tribes. The French supervise or control this 
election. When the various local legislatures or 
djemaas assemble, it is a sort of federate congress. 
It is called the Soff; It is this system which has 
made the Kabyles potential. The French officer at 
Fort Napoleon confessed to me that the Kabyles were 
industrious. He took us through the machine-shops, 

M 2 



1 64 The Kabyle in the Matrimonial relation. 

where they were learning to make furniture, &c., and 
had turning-lathes. He praised their ingenuity, but he 
said they were quarrelsome, litigious — always claiming 
and defending their rights or objecting to wrongs. He 
said a Kabyle was then in prison for shooting another 
who had stepped on his land after being forbidden. 
Well, I rather like this, for it shows a sort of individual 
independence, which accounts for the fact that the 
Kabyles of these mountains and valleys were never 
conquered by the Romans or Turks, and never by the 
French until 1857. Marshal Randon promised to 
conserve all their domestic and ancient institutions, and 
then and then only, they agreed to the French domina- 
tion. So you see that this part of Algiers has some 
local self-government ; that the authorities conciliate 
and mitigate the vigour of the military rule for the 
general tranquillity. As an instance of the acquiescence 
of the French in these ancient and native customs, I 
mention what was told me by the judge at Fort Napo- 
leon : A Kabyle woman was maltreated by her husband ; 
she left him ; but alas ! with another man. She was 
overhauled at Bougie en roitte to France or Tunis, 
and brought back to the mountains. Word was sent 
to the husband. The officer said that he must deliver 
her to the husband, though he was sure that the hus- 
band would assassinate her. The Kabyle is very 
jealous. He holds his vAfe with a tyrannical grip. I 
said, ' But why do you turn her over to certain 
murder ?' He said, * If we do not, we raise turbulence 
and trouble. We agreed to respect the Kabyle cus- 
toms, and this is one of them. If, however, he assassi- 
nates his wife, we shall capture him and set him to 
work.' To my understanding this was very foolish or 
very — French. 

The Kabyle belongs to the mountains. His little 
houses, made of cane and covered with the same and 



speculations on the Kabyle Race. 1 6 



straw, or in some places made of stone and covered 
with a rude red tile, indicate considerable social ad- 
vancement. His women are not so sedulously hid and 
veiled. We had no trouble in seeing them and going 
into their houses, both in the plains, on the mountain 
.sides, and even perched upon the tops of the Atlas 
spurs. 

If I were to speculate about the Kabyles, and with 
the valuable work of John D. Baldwin before me, I 
should say, first, that races are seldom found pure ; 
secondly, that Africa, even in its interior, is not in- 
habited by savage blacks, like the Guinea negroes ; 
thirdly, an opinion based on conversation with Dr. 
Beke and other explorers, that the African proper, if 
not white, is a ' red race,' i.e. brown or olive coloured, 
like the Kabyles ; fourthly, that in northern Africa, 
although there is a great intermixture of black and 
white — growing out of conquests of Phoenician, Greek, 
Roman, Goth, Turk, and French — yet, so far as that 
portion of the continent is concerned, the Berbers, or 
Barbarians, now supposed to be the Tauarigs, or 
Touaricks, are of the prehistoric, primordial stock, 
from which the Kabyles are doubtless an oifshoot. 
These Tauarigs are of the Desert and not the people 
to acknowledge the relationship ; they are proud and 
reluctant to recognise any power but their own. Even 
their camels are said to be more aristocratic than the 
beasts of other tribes. 

But whether these people, who live alone and in a 
great degree untainted by commixture, are aboriginal 
and pre-historic ; whether they are coeval with the first 
forming of the Mississippi delta, only 100,000 years 
ago ; or the Florida coral reefs, still thirty-five 
thousand years older ; whether they are Cushite, 
Semite, or Aryan ; whether out of Arabia, Egypt, or 
India; whether they are the second birth of a race, 



1 66 Relationship of the Kabyle and the Berber. 

aroused to self-consciousness by some new physical 
developments ; — one thing is as certain as any other 
connected with these nebulosities of history, viz. 
that the Kabyle is very like this same pre-historic 
Berber. The Kabyle is not black; neither is the 
Berber. Their colour comes alone from solar expo- 
sure ; it is not organic. So of the Berber. Mr. 
Baldwin, in his book, in describing the Berber, uncon- 
sciously describes the Kabyle, as I have seen him. They 
have towns, and an excellent condition of agriculture. 
They are very skilful in the cultivation of fruit. Their 
method of political organization is democratic, some- 
what after the fashion of the old Cushite municipali- 
ties. To quote Mr. Richardson, he affirms (what I 
allege of my Kabyle friends) that in the Touarick 
countries all the people govern ; that the woman is not 
the woman of the Moors and Mussulmans ; that she 
has much liberty, walks about unveiled, and takes an 
active part in the affairs and transactions of life. I 
shall have occasion especially to verify these latter 
statements. That Berber and Kabyle each has a con- 
federacy, has had a literature, that they once had exten- 
sive supremacy in the ancient world, that the whole 
continent was once controlled by them from this 
northern coast,- — all these facts help us to account for 
the wonderful relics of civilization which exploration has 
disclosed to the sunbeams of the African coast. But 
if other proof were wanting to establish the relation- 
ship of Kabyle and Berber, the similarity of language 
does it. For the discussion of the question, I refer to 
General Daumas' book, ' La Grande Kabylie.' One 
thing is beyond discussion, their language is from the 
Orient. Its history, grandeur, and glory, and that of 
its cognate languages, are well described in the fol- 
lowing extract from the volume of J. R. Morrell : — 
' With reverence we approach the ancient and venerable 



The fruitful Plain of Mitidji. 167 

tongues of Northern Africa, but mostly the Semitic, 
of yore the speech of angels, and the vehicle of the 
Almighty Himself, when He walked with man and 
spake unto the fathers. The accents of tenderness and 
love transcending the heart of man, the utterance of a 
sweetness emanating from higher harmonies, flowed in 
the soft Syriac stream from Immanuel's lips ; and that 
mysterious writing on the wall, the warning of the 
despots once again startling the vision of the New 
World, was traced in the primeval Ninivean characters 
affiliated with the great Aramasan family ; and lastly, 
the glowing yet sublime language of the Koran must 
ever command the respect and admiration of Christian 
charity.' 

The reader being somewhat prepared for the inspec- 
tion of the Kabyie communities, and of their portraiture, 
as it appears in these pages, I go back to Algiers and 
travel with him to this point, in the Kabyie land. 

As to the mode of coming hither : We left Algiers 
early in the morning, in a carriage. Dr. Henry 
Bennet and two ladies were of the company. 
Hahmoud was upon the seat with the driver. He 
is our Arab conductor, and bears a great name here. 
We had three horses, with bells on them, and a relay 
of horses sent on the evening before. We soon pass 
eastward out of the City of Algiers. We drive along 
the sea, under the brow of Sahel, and reach the broad, 
long, fruitful Plain of Mitidji. This plain was once 
the granary of the Roman world. It is yet, or could 
be, as fruitful as of old — -potens armis atque tibere 
glebes. For forty miles east, and from the sea side to 
the swelling hills and rising mountains, which are the 
steps to the summits of Atlas, there were many shifting 
scenes, but they all presented views of cultivation and 
evidence of labour. Of course here and there was to 
be seen some shrub-covered land. It is like parts of 



1 68 The Cactus a Fence even against Wild Beasts, 

Corsica or the heaths of Scotland. It has been left to 
the pelican and the brushwood. Over it the sheep and 
goats brouse and the cattle and camels feed under the 
care of shepherds and drivers. The road is good, but 
not yet as complete as French roads in Corsica. Some 
fine bridges are made of iron, but they are not to be 
used till the 15th August next, the centennial anni- 
versary of the great Napoleon's birth. 

We invariably start for travel in Algiers before 
breakfast ; or, taking coffee, travel towards breakfast. 
To an unaccustomed tourist, almost the first object 
on the roQte to Fort Napoleon, is the cactus. It is so 
common and so high. It is the hedge or dividing line 
between farms. It was in use here before the French 
came. It is not only good for its fruit — the prickly 
pear — but it would 'turn' any animal except a crazy 
dervish. Lions, tigers, hyenas, and jackals, yet in 
plenty here, hardly dare attack a cactus fence. We 
perceive, also, some bamboo hedges. Upon the road 
we meet a team, which smacks of the Yankee — a 
waggon drawn by two oxen and a horse in the lead. It 
is driven by n, Kabyle sometimes, but generally by a 
French colonist. We meet heavy waggons with ten 
horses or mules. The animals are feeding out of 
baskets as they go. Now and then a big bird — the 
heron — dashes by us and lights in a distant marsh, or 
presents a good shot from the top of a hay-stack. 
Sheep and goats are seen. Charcoal in loads, in 
waggons, and on donkeys, passes by. In the early 
morn the blue smoke of the charcoal-burners is seen 
curling through the mist of the distant mountain. 
The Atlas range seems far upon our right and front. 
Great shadows hang down its sides, like the furrowed 
folds of a garment. The clouds to the south, towards 
Blidah and Milianah and the desert, lead us in our 
imagination thither, though our course lies towards 



Primitive Plottgh. 169 



the Kabyle land and breakfast. We pass by houses — 
long, one-story houses — ^walled in. In fact, they are 
known as ' fortified farms.' In the recent wars, and in 
the interest of military colonization, like that of the 
Roman and French, these farms were a part of a 
system. In the fields of the Mitidji Valley, over which 
we are rolling, we perceive the ploughs at work. Far 
up into the mountains, five, six, and sometimes ten 
ploughs are going on one farm. The plough is a rude 
wooden one, with a tongue or pole, and another pole 
at right angles with the tongue, to which, far apart, 
the oxen are rudely yoked. They pull slow, and 
slower, and seem to stop. This plough has been used 
in the Orient some thousands of years. Here the 
natives, when they have been offered the shining share 
of civilized people, let it rust, and plough in the old 
soil a few inches deep in the same old way. You 
perceive in yonder field, walking with dignity, holding 
one handle — the only one — some Kabyle Cincinnatus, 
robed in his flowing bournous, every inch a Roman, 
clad in his toga. Indeed, the Kabyles claim to have 
been mixed with the old Romans, and to have their 
customs and manners. Perhaps so. The Romans 
never conquered them. That is true. But it was the 
Roman custom to colonize by settling down the soldiers 
and marrying them to the maidens of the land. If 
they could not conquer them by arms, they did by arts, 
or by a combination of both. 

There is something very beautiful in this grand 
plain of the Mitidji. Not only its fields of waving 
oats, barley, and wheat, just ripening ; not only its flax 
fields, in bluest bloom ; not alone its flowers and 
shrubs, two out of every three of which we have seen 
in Corsica or in the Riviera; not alone its yellow 
genista, a flower of Gascony, and from which the 
Plantagenets took their name — for they were Gascons, 



1 70 The Promethed7t vapOt]^. 

like the flowers ; not alone the ferula, so common here, 
resembling in its green the asparagus, and in its blossom 
like the aloe. This is the same ferule, known to the 
Roman schoolboys and celebrated by Roman poets ; 
and not unknown, though not philologically, as the 
same ruler by which Young England, Ireland and 
America have been seasoned, a posteriori^ by bellicose 
pedagogues. It is the same plant as that, known to the 
classics, within whose cavity Prometheus — that 'thief 
of fire from heaven' — brought down surreptitiously, 
for the benefit of mankind, ' Sunbeams ' and fire. 
This plant is therefore — notwithstanding juvenile asso- 
ciations derived from the time when I was flogged 
along the flowery path of knowledge — a favourite with 
me ; and I, therefore, recall its Greek equivalent — 

vapOr]^. 

Yonder, in the plain, are a dozen camels and as 
many donkeys, feeding, some of the former upon their 
knees, and some of the latter saying their grace with 
the most hideous outcry. These remind us of what 
the inner monitor confirms, that we, too, need break- 
fast. In a little village we find it all ready, for we had 
sent our horses on, and word with them. The name 
of the village I cannot recall, but the inn was the 
Hotel de Col Bernaycha, and its sign was two pipes 
crossed. The village has cane huts with straw roofs, 
and one little stone, white-washed house. It was 
French, and there we were ushered through the hotel 
into a summer-house, amidst some chickens, dogs, and 
Uttle pet piglings, of the wild boar tribe, and served 
with five courses. 

We are not long in despatching the meal. Soon 
we are on the move. We meet French soldiers 
guarding prisoners. The latter trudge along sadly. 
We cross some little streams, having on their banks 
fringes of oleander. We arrive at Isser. Here we 



A Ladys trial of Camel-riding, 1 7 1 

meet some half-dozen camels and drivers — Kabyles. 
Hahmoud knows the head man. I desire to ride a 
camel, never having essayed it, since I ' swung round 
the circle ' of a tan-bark ring, when life was young and 
Africa terra incognita. The camel drivers consent. 
The French population gather about our carriage and 
w^atch proceedings. The complaisant head of this 
caravan descends from his donkey. He calls one 
camel, uses his stick upon him, says, ' scht ! ' ' scht ! ' 
with plentiful sibilation, and the camel prepares to 
come down. This is a part of his early education. 
His front knees first touch the earth. He groans at 
the indignity. Then, after more sibilation, he gathers 
in his two hinder knees, and gives another groan. He 
looks mad, chews the cud vigorously, observes my 
motions as I proceed to mount, and not seeing a 
turban, and not knowing me for one of the 'long 
robe,' he exhibits a strong disinclination to being 
' backed like a camel.' There is a coarse, wooden 
skeleton of a saddle on his hump. I lay my hands on, 
preparing for a spring. ' No, no ! ' all cry. ' Not 
that one. Try another ! ' ' Why not ? ' ' Oh ! ' as 
Hahmoud translates the Arabic, ' He is too mechant^ 
— i.e.^ wicked. Others are lowered on their knees. 
At last I mount ; the Doctor takes another. We are 
so successful in our camel ride that we persuade one 
of the ladies of our company. She mounts, with 
Hahmoud's aid, a grey one, but her ride is cut short. 
Her camel, too, is cross. The Arabs say that the beast is 
afraid of the black dress of the lady, being accustomed 
only to the light woollen burnous. It was hard for 
her to mount, and being mounted it was a lively trot 
for my lady. She clung to her saddle with a death 
grip. The camel started off. Far up in the air, 
swaying with the motions and feeling uncomfortable 
at the sinister looks of the camel, she calls a Halt, and 



172 The Marabouts. 



is at last rescued from her lofty, ambitious and pre- 
carious position. I am sure that the artist has but 
faintly pictured this interesting ride. 

Soon we proceed, and having reached the con- 
fluence of the Sebaou and Oued-Aissi — two principal 
streams in this part of Africa — we find the bridges not 
yet made. We perceive the convict soldiers at work 
driving piles for the bridge. But we have to cross. 
The rivers are not full, but when full are very wide, 
and the bed, nearly a half-mile broad, is full of 
boulders. Of course the crossing-place changes with 
each day's current, and is therefore perilous. Our 
driver summons some Arabs to ford in advance. It 
is lucky that it is afternoon, for we learn that in 
the morning the current is strong and deep. The 
melted snows of the day before reach, by soaking 
through the earth, the middle of the plain by morning. 
The Arabs fold the drapery of their clothes high 
about them, and — wade in ! We follow in our car- 
riage. A few sous in recompense, and we move on 
to Tizi Ouzou, where we are to rest over night. 

From it we can, by a glance through the dim air, 
perceive Fort Napoleon, far up and beyond in the 
mountains. Tizi Ouzou has much celebrity, not 
alone for the vigour of its fighting against the French, 
but for its great fertility. The mountains above the 
village are crowned by a marabout tomb. The mara- 
bouts are the priesthood most sacred in the Moslem 
faith. They are the repositories of literature. Their 
homes are sacred, and their tombs preserved. Upon 
every mountain where the Arab population is gathered 
you may see a small, square building, with a dome. 
This building is white, and renewed by the reverence 
of its devotees. Many a marabout, by his songs, 
sermons, wit, and wisdom, has given the French the 
trouble of suppressing fresh insurrections. The 'sacred 



The Valley of Tizi Oitzou. 173 

war,' as it is called, which Abd-el-Kader waged from 
1837 to 1848, was preached as the Crusades were, by 
priests. The marabouts rouse the people by a secret, 
emotional religious power. They will yet cause 
the French much trouble. Fanaticism is very un- 
ruly. 

The valley of Tizi Ouzou, where I write, is culti- 
vated. The green fields climb up above to the 
summits, 4000 feet. The flocks are abundant. There 
is no separation — not yet — of sheep and goats. The 
French houses are low and white-washed. We had 
hardly descended from the carriage and into our little 
inn here, before two Kabyles — Hahmoud's friends — 
invited us to walk across the valley, and see their 
town. One of them, in good French, promised to 
show us the inside of his house, and to introduce 
us to the women-folk. We pursued our path up the 
mountain side, and there, behind the high, prickly- 
pear walls, lay the irregular, streetless, flat -roofed 
town. The mosque is the most considerable building, 
in front of which sit, cross-legged, some score or more 
of Kabyles, who salute us. A dozen of their children 
are playing corner ball — our old American play, — 
only this, that those w^ho are ' in ' ride on the backs of 
the ' outs.' It is a political lesson. We visit the foun- 
tains. Then we enter one of the huts. A little yard, 
roughly paved, and shut in by the prickly-pear, is the 
antepast of the domestic entertainment within the low 
door of the cane hut. The hut is dark, and smutched 
with smoke and soot. It has no chimney. All of 
them are thus, even those of stone. These were not 
even lighted, as others which we saw were, by a little 
charcoal fire on a brazier, in the middle of the hut, or 
in a hole in the ground. The smoke got out, any how. 
It got out of the door just as the mother of our con- 
ductor drew our ladies in. You should have seen the 



174 Kabyle Girls ajtd Boys. 

old woman of these premises ! What hilarious grunts 
and giggles of satisfaction she displayed. After I 
struck a match, she pointed out her properties and 
advantages. She pointed out her jars for olive oil, 
saying: 'Umph!' With a gurgle of delectation, she 
showed us a pan for cooking her bread. She lit some 
rags, as the match went out, to show us her mat, 
which she slept on, or rather matting to be placed on 
the stone bed. How easily are the unsophisticated 
comforted ! When one of my lady friends gave her 
some coin she was made happy — could not let her go. 
The children — and there are many in the Kabyle 
country (Algiers is prolific, even the girls put on the 
veil at nine) — the children were watching for our exit. 
While the boys were boisterous and boasting, and 
displayed their morsel of French, learned in the schools, 
the girls were as timid as gazelles. Coaxing would 
hardly bring, even to one of their own sex, foreign to 
them, the trembling forms of the bluely-tinted and 
tattooed girls who followed in the rear of the boys for 
the sous ! As we marched down the mountain, there 
were not less than a hundred children dancing in our 
wake. Some were bold enough to talk. Some had 
charge of their kids and lambs, and dropped them to 
say ' Buono.' One of our ladies to one of the young- 
sters often years, thus : — ' What will you do when you 
grow up, my boy ? ' ' Oh ! I shall be married.' 
'Will you make your wife work?' 'No! I will do 
the work ; she may stay at home.' ' But what will 
she do?' 'Oh! make bread — and— my burnous.' 
' Do you wash your own burnous ? ' ' Oh, yes.' 
'How?' 'With my feet.' 'Why not with your 
hands ? ' ' Too heavy.' So you may see, from these 
chance talks of the shaven-headed youngsters, some- 
thing of their elders. It is true the Kabyles treat 
their wives pretty well. They seldom, unless sheiks, 



I 



Problem on Military Sub jti gallon. 175 

have more than one. We see them in the streams 
washing their own burnous. The women carry water 
in great jars to the huts from the fountains as they 
carry their babies — on their backs — with hands behind 
to guard. This seems to be their principal employ- 
ment. 

The French have had some of the Tizi Ouzou 
children at school. They have shown great pro- 
ficiency. We overheard some of the children who 
followed us say of the, others : ' How proud these 
schoolboys are ! ' The schoolboys say, 'Quelle belise /' 
and trot along after us, 'proud' of their civilized 
tongue and the attention we bestow. 

I have been rather particular in these frivolities of 
the children, for they are indices of the government 
established. Is it not an interesting problem, even for 
Americans to solve : How may subjugation by the 
military be made at once tolerable to the conquered 
race, and elevating to a higher refinement ? 

But we are soon at our hotel, leaving political and 
social problems under the beauteous, pink veil which 
Nature is arranging for the evening party, whereat 
Old Atlas will gallant his family to the upper star-lit 
halls. 

We, too, pass within the veil, and sleep till morn. 
Then we start again. More rivers to cross, and, still 
worse, they are dangerous ; for, if the horses should 
halt, the carnage would sink in the sand of the stream. 
We wind up, up, and around the groves of ilex, ash, 
and olives, in a spiral path, decorated all the way up 
with the little red pink silena and the pheasant's eye. 
We are overlooking valleys, rich in vegetable life ; 
and like a splendid piece of mosaic, far below, like 
a picture from an Alpine height, — you may see 
the square fields of newly-ploughed ground, alternating 
with light and dark green fields, as far as the human 



,176 Fort Napoleon. 



eye can penetrate either with or without a glass. We 
perceive the Kabyle villages. We go through more 
and more, of them. They grow better on the moun- 
tains ; because built there of stone, and tiled. We are 
treated courteously ; invited in ; our watches and orna- 
ments are gazed at with unsophisticated curiosity. 
The Peruvians did not look at Pizarro's feather or 
Almagro's horse with more simplicity and eagerness 
than the Kabyle girls examined the dress of my lady 
companions. The work on hand was the pressing of 
the olive — dark and oleaginous. The old press used 
in the time of Daniel— a simple wooden screw, which 
has been whittled out for a common press — is al] the 
mechanical power they have. We see the women 
kneading bread. We notice many Kabyles lying 
around and doing nothing. We ask why ? They are 
waiting for harvest next month. But generally they 
are working people. Their fig-trees are loaded ; their 
olives are thrifty ; their wheat looks well ; their cattle, 
camels, donkeys, and horses, seem the best. Their 
houses, beds, and dress, alone show the lack of civiliza- 
tion and comfort. 

But there are many drawbacks to their prosperity. 
Everything now looks well. But the locust may be 
on his devouring path from the desert, as in 1867. 
The fogs may come from the sea, and all the summer 
harvest may be lost ! The sirocco may come in June, 
and blast by its hot breath the flower of the wheat. 
This has been, and may be. But the Kabyle still 
labours on and ever. He is, to-day, what he was when 
Rome found him. 

We finally wind up to Fort Napoleon. It is like 
all the other places where battles have been fought in 
Algiers — a walled town. It has a good hotel, but the 
roguish landlord, anxious for custom, offers Hahmoud 
a handsome bribe to hold us over night. Hahmoud 



Fatima, the Kabyle yoaii of Arc. 177 

is honest and refuses. We have a good lunch of wild 
boar's meat, and between the dishes we amuse our- 
selves by observing the pictures of the auberge. Here 
is Napoleon III. in red pants, sasK over his shoulders, 
five medals on his breast, a cocked hat, and as large as 
life ! On the other walls, the English cockney is ridi- 
culed in a pictorial series of Parisian caricatures, very 
imaginative ! Above us is the skin of a leopard, like that 
which we saw at Tizi Ouzou. The leopards are nearly 
obsolete here. So are the lions. A few now and then 
appear. We have seen none yet ; in fact, no wild 
beasts, except a jackal. But of the wild beasts of 
Algeria I must write at length. My porcupine quill, 
presented to me by one who plucked it, has much 
to tell. 

Fort Napoleon overlooks 170 villages. It has but 
500 soldiers, but it is strongly fortified. We obtain a 
splendid view from its highest terrace ; from its centre 
' all round to the sea.' The long, broken, snow range 
of Atlas, which has followed us hither, seems but a 
short distance from us. The village is improving since 
the war has ceased. Some officers pointed out the 
two Kabyle towns last to yield to France. They had 
their local Joan of Arc. Her name w^as Fatima, and 
she inspired an intense hatred of French rule, and 
helped the Kabyles to fight. We see here what w^e 
have seen before — a grand m.arket of the natives. 
Calves, cows, kids, sheep, goats, horses, donkeys, figs, 
and charcoal, are here traded off and on. Some 1000 
Kabyles are gossiping and buzzing like so many bulls 
and bears in a New York gold market or a Paris 
Bourse. 

We were kindly treated by the authorities at the fort, 
and before night, we dashed, under the crack of the whip 
on the flanks of our three horses, and follow^ed by crowds 
of Kabyle children, to the base of the mountain. In 



178 Offer to buy Mademoiselle as third Wife, 

passing one village a handsome young gentleman — a 
Kabyle Alcibiades — in a very clean robe, accosted us 
in French. He v/as astonished that we had come seven 
thousand kilometres to see him ! He had a very vague 
idea of A^merica, but an enthusiastic admiration for the 
Italian girl, who is one of our companions. He ran 
after our carriage several miles in an ecstasy of love 
at first sight. The scapegrace ! He had two wives 
already. He said that he could afford another, as his 
last was an orphan and cost only three hundred francs ! 
I said, ' How much do you propose for mademoiselle ? ' 
^ A thousand francs, and if you wait here I will go up 
the mountain for the money ! ' We did not wait, but 
dashed on, and the Kabyle after us. I was reminded 
by his flowing robe and naked leg, of the verse of 
old Purcha,s (before Chaucer) in his ' Musical Pilgrim ' 
— describing my Kabyle, t^tnc pro nunc^ as a — 

' Man with doublettez full schert 
Bare legget and light to stert.' 

What time we made, or he made, for many miles ! 
How he performed that journey ; with w^hat strides 
and with what hopes ; how the Arab horses glanced 
round now and then at the airy bournous of this 
swain, — is it not more than written, — graphically 
sketched on enduring copper, whose impressions I 
present on the neighbouring page ? 

The Kabyle men are shaven, but the women wear 
long hair and have girdles, which the men have not. 
They all have glistening white teeth and perfect. 
Good food and digestion,' says the Doctor. ' No wine,' 
says Hahmoud. It is true. Mohammed forbade 
wine to the faithful. Hence, they say, white teeth 
and good digestion. We see no rows, no drunken- 
ness. The only intemperance is too much marrying ! 



Tyrannical Isolation of Arab Woinen. 179 

Hahmoud says : Mf they drank, what with jea- 
lousy of their women and their independence and 
guns, their troubles would multiply and their prosperity 
decrease.' In fact, as we were told by the officers at 
the fort, one of the great troubles among the Kabyles, 
not only betv/een the towns and tribes, but individuals, 
springs from the jealous feeUng as to their wives. La 
Vendetta is almost as rancorous and persistent here 
now, as it ever was in Corsica. We are told that to- 
day, while at the fort, a man with a pistol had been 
walking and watching for an enemy. 

There has been much fighting here, not alone on 
domestic, but political matters. Every field has been 
a camp ; and every little mountain town has run red 
with blood. The Arab makes more display ; but the 
Kabyle effects more. I do not admire the Arab way 
of treating the women, by shutting them in houses and 
tents, or worse in manifolds of linen drapery. Even 
when they travel, the Arabs, like some we met, build 
on a camel's back a harem, in which to hide their 
women under shawls. It makes an interesting picture 
of the Orient, but has no good sense to recommend 
it ; and more than that, it does not improve the temper 
or ensure the chastity of the Arab women. This mode 
of isolating the women is as unnatural as it is tyrannical 
and devilish. No wonder the Arab women are reputed 
cunning and loose. The Kabyle women are other- 
wise. The men respect them. I have seen the Arab 
men riding and the wives walking. Not so the Kabyle. 
If he rides, his wife is before or behind ; and the 
Kabyle man carries — the baby ! On our pathway to 
this place we observe many signs of the ' Grande Halte 
du Marechal,' from which I infer that here the French 
troops bivouacked on their pursuit after the natives 
in this Kabyle land. 

N 2 



1 80 General Character of the Kabyle. 

If I could give in a few words my observation of 
the Kabyle, I would say that he is industrious and 
ingenious ; the Yankee of the Mohamedans ; demo- 
cratic in polity, frank in intercourse, and independent 
in character ; a mountaineer and a farmer ;; a man of 
bravery and of intelligence, only his religion enthrals 
his energy. 



I 



( i8i ) 




CHAPTER XL 

i 

BUD AH AND MILIANAH—THE ARABS, 

' And he will be a wild man ; his hand shall be against every man, and 
every man's hand against him ; and he shall dwell in the presence of all 
his brethren.' — Gen. xvi. 12. 

' The Arab is the hero of romantic history : little is known of him but 
by glimpses ; he sets statistics at defiance, and the political economist has 
no share in him ; for who can tell where the Arab dwelleth, or who has 
marked out the boundaries of his people.' — The Crescent and the Cross. 

E return to the city of Algiers from Kabyle 
land, and from thence we move to th*e 
west and south. The desert is before us, 
and Oran is beyond. A splendid stop- 
ping point is the city of Milianah, which is reached 
via Blidah. We have thirty miles of railroad out 
of Algiers to Blidah. We start at noon and remain 
there all night. The railroad runs eastward for a 
space, along the sea. A strange phenomenon ap- 
pears on the waves, for half a mile out. The sea is 
' incarnadine,' with a vegetable fucus. The effect is 
peculiar, tropical, and striking. Soon we turn to the 
south, and pass over the plain of Mitidji. It is not 
so well cultivated as its rich soil would demand. The 
fact is, it is malarious, and although it has buried a 
generation, it has yet' to bury more before the old 
fruitfulness comes out of its soil. Blidah is celebrated 
for its earthquakes and its oranges. It has been badly 
used by the former. In 1825 it was shaken up 
horribly. Seven thousand people perished in the ruins 
caused by the earthquake. Another destructive earth- 
quake occurred in 1867. Every house made of the 
boulders and mortar, as the poorer houses here are 



1 82 Orange Orchards of Blidah. 

constructed, was shaken down. There was great loss 
of life and property, and great suffering was the con- 
sequence. Our driver told us that he had been shaken, 
and when he awoke he found the walls of his house 
down, and his head out of doors. He showed me a 
scar on his forehead from the falling of his tiles. But 
Blidah makes up soon for these disasters. She has 
twenty-two gardens of delicious oranges. They are 
large and fine. No such oranges grow anywhere 
else that I know of The Sicilian, Nice, Mentone, 
Spanish, or West Indian oranges cannot compare with 
them. Why are these oranges so very rich and 
sweet ? Is it the sun ? But the sun is the same at 
other places. If you would know why winter sun- 
beams ripen the orange with so palatable a saccharine 
juice, you must go into the arcana of nature. I ask 
my friend, the Doctor, sometimes such puzzling 
questions. He does not answer me as the peasant in 
Corsica did, when I questioned him, why one moun- 
tain was all green and the other all bare ? The 
peasant says :C'It is the caprice of the Eternal Father^ 
The Doctor would say, ' It is owing to the exposure 
— northern or southern. If under too scorching a 
sun, the land will be bare. If under too harsh a 
northern blast, the same. If it has no water, no 
clouds, no irrigation, or other conditions of vegetable 
life, then that life will not appear. Rocks are the 
bones of nature. They come out of the skin to show 
that the patient is not so well, and will not grow.' 
But you ask : Why is the orange so sweet, and the 
lemon so sour, all under the same sun, and from 
the same soil? Why do the dates ripen after being 
plucked, and other fruit not ? There you are trying 
to force the arcana. Only thus much will the oracle 
respond: Grains or fruits, even when unripe, have 
starch in large quantities (amylum). It is partly 



I 



Cause and Remedy of Malaina. 1 83 

changed to sugar in ripening, whether the process 
takes place before or after gathering. This sugar 
by fermentation becomes spirit. That any vigilant 
whiskey inspector knows. In all three conditions — 
starch, sugar, and spirit — the chemical components 
are the same : carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Good ! 
It begins to be clear why Milianah has the sourest 
lemons, and Blidah the sweetest oranges; for is not 
the combination of these components, at the two 
places, in different proportions ? And does not this 
constitute the difference ? But why should the rocks 
grow cedars of Lebanon, and the fat plains have no- 
thing but grass and flowers ? The oracle is dumb. 
Let us eat our oranges, and drink of the spirit of wine, 
and be glad. Allah is Allah ! and Mahomet is his 
prophet ! Let us be content to look at the orange in 
its bloom, and its golden orb of fruit, and be thank- 
ful, without further inquisition. The size of the 
orange-trees at Blidah indicates that they are guarded 
from the north wind, and not harmed by the sirocco. 
I measured in one garden an orange-tree whose trunk 
was six feet round! The Doctor confesses that no 
such trees grow on the Riviera. There are some 
40,000 trees growing and bearing here. Of course, 
this makes Blidah quite lively. It has a population of 
8000, more than two-thirds European, and among 
them many Spaniards. The cactus, or prickly-pear, 
is much grown here. It is a sort of hedge or pro- 
tection to the other fruit. The malaria once prevailed, 
but drainage has made it an infrequent visitor. Blidah 
is 600 feet above the sea-level. Generally, the malaria 
stops at 300 feet, as in Corsica. But the plain is so 
enormous between Blidah and the sea, and the moun- 
tains — Sahel range — along the sea, so enclose the 
streams from the Atlas south — at whose feet BUdah 
reposes like a young bride in her orange blooms, — 



i 84 The Gorge of Chiffa. 

that it required much labour and ditching to make 
Blidah habitable and healthy. Above Blidah is the 
Atlas, and, as usual here, behind a misty shroud ; 
because the air from the north comes saturated from 
the moist plain and the sea. But the mountains do 
not look less lovely because they are enshrouded, and 
their deep shadows are very beautiful upon their 
northern flanks. 

I spoke of the orange orchards. We visited the 
largest one. Through avenues of plane-trees we come 
to its gate. We perceive at the gate a fine dog on 
watch, and over his kennel some facetious person has 
written : ' Parlez au concierge^ nommS Turc I ' I 
cultivated the good humour of our Cerberus, and he 
allowed us to go in. This garden is walled thickly, 
and guarded also by cypresses. 

But there is a more delightful resort than this for 
the inhabitants of Algiers and Blidah. It is the Gorge 
of ChifFa. After being fixed in our quarters — for, 
the hotel being full, we had to be lodged the best we 
could over a confectionery establishment — we proceed 
to the Gorge. It is a two hours' ride. As we go out 
we perceive upon the plain the Chasseurs d'Afrique, 
practising in the sun. The flash of their swords, the 
words of command^ and the white horses dashing 
about so picturesquely mounted, make it a lively 
scene. We are happy in meeting on the way mine 
host of the Gorge, who turns about to prepare our 
dinner. While dinner is preparing, we pass on to 
penetrate the mountain still further. The Gorge is 
celebrated for four things — its cascades, dashing down 
from mountain heights, 4000 feet ; its monkeys, after 
which the inn is named ; its having been visited by 
Louis Napoleon in i860; and its gardens of quinine 
and tea-plants, and winding paths up the mountain. 
On our return to the hostelry we are invited to walk 



Louis Napoleons Visit. 185 

up the paths. The torrent from the mountain — ■ 
which runs at right angles with the Gorge of the 
ChifFa, and empties its seething waters into the Chiffa 
— has made such a wild, romantic valley, that the 
hand of Art has seized upon it to beautify it with 
paths and plants, flowers and fountains ; while Science 
has made its quiet nooks, unvisited by harsh winds, 
a conservatory for experiments in quinine and tea- 
plants. 'Will the party please walk up to the sum- 
mer-house where the Emperor took breakfast ? Your 
dinner will be served there.' We will. We did. It 
is a fairy spot. The birds sing all through it, far up 
some thousand feet, whither the walks tend and wind 
among rocks, trees, and flowers* Here moss of every 
colour and age grows, made beautiful near the grottos 
of fern, and both fed by the dampness of the torrent. 
The African ivy hugs about the rocks, which hang 
imminently over our heads, or lie where they have 
been tumbled into the midst of the torrent. What 
with the song of the torrent never ceasing, the carol 
of the birds — a whole choir attuning at once — the 
ba-ha4ng of the goats above and sheep around, the 
croak of crapeau, and the chattering of the monkeys^ 
who are wont to come out of a warm afternoon from 
the rocks above to eat and talk, old monkeys and 
young ones — the latter on the backs of their mothers 
— but all little monkeys — these are the beings whose 
noises salute our ear. But to the eye^ what with the 
willoWj the micoulier of Provence, the castor-oil tree, 
the quinine, and tea — ' Ah ! is it not pleasant,' says the 
Doctor, ' to see Nature doing her best, as she does 
here ? ' Human nature must do likewise ; and so we 
go to dinner. Upon the side of the hostelry some 
genius has painted a race of hounds after a wild boar. 
The dogs are mounted by monkeys ; even the gobbler 
which saluted us as we passed up the valley, is depicted 



Arab Market. 



mounted by a monkey and in the race. These illus- 
trations furnish us amusement, as we wait for the 
trout, quail, and other dishes of which the dinner is 
composed. 

The tops of the mountains begin to lose the last 
radiance of the day. We start for Bhdah. The moon 
comes out to give us the Gorge under new lights and 
shades. Verily, it is grand. The lights are on one 
side and the shades on the other, and they reach far 
Up into the sky, from which the cascades leap and 
play in the moonlight musically and fantastically. 

We slept at Blidah, and had no earthquake. We 
awoke to find the starlings, which fill all these villages 
of Algiers, in full song. We are soon in our carriage, 
out of the walls and gate of the place, and on our 
way to Milianah. We pass an Arab market, which 
is held every Friday over the country. Thousands' 
are chaffering and bargaining. We begin to find 
some Morocco people among the native population : 
they are darker and wilder looking. We pass some 
gipsies from Spain. We go by a vale known as the 
Valley of Robbers. It used to be quite a haunt in 
the good old days before the French gensd'armes came. 

We are half-way to Milianah before we know it. 
Our driver has been bragging a good deal about 
the Arab horses, their endurance and speed. We 
listened incredulously. Now we begin to have faith. 
He tells us that one of his horses, a white one (and 
most of the horses here are white or dark gray), can 
go — has gone — 126 miles in twenty-two hours! Now 
I believe it. We have travelled behind these horses 
for a fortnight. We have been promised, for example, 
to reach our destination in nine hours ; we were con- 
tent ; but we reach it in six ! We are delighted. 
Every time yet have we been more than delighted 
with the performances of these horses. It is either 



I 



Qitalities of the A7^ab Horses. 187 



a cunning way the French have of promising far less 
than they perform, or else when under way, their 
horses beget a more than ordinary momentum. We 
were promised forty-eight hours from Marseilles to 
Algiers ; we did it by the steamer in forty ! So that 
it looks like a French rule, and it is a good one. 
As to the Arab horses, I have seen the best of them. 
Nothing can excel the elegance of their bearing and 
the speed and hardiness of their thoroughbred training 
and work. The best stallions of Algiers are in the 
hands of the French officers. The cute Arab will 
risk a flogging, and something worse, in order to 
steal into the precincts of the stallion with his blooded 
mare, for the probability of a thoroughbred colt. I 
do not see, however, evidence of that attachment 
which it is said the Arab bears to his horse, and which 
the Arab songs lead us to imply. The spur he uses 
on his horse is worse than torture. It is a sharp spike, 
six inches long. I wondered that these Arab horses 
were so plenty and so cheap. One of the finest was 
priced at 500 francs, or 100 dollars. The Doctor says 
such horses would bring in London ^^150. I think 
in New York they would bring 500 dollars. But I 
wondered no longer when I found that the Govern- 
ment prohibits their exportation. If it w^ere allowed 
to-morrow, Algiers would be full of horse-traders from 
Marseilles and Paris. Why is their export prohibited ? 
It is impossible to do the w^ork here, under the summer 
sun, either of the army or the diligence, with any 
other kind of horses. So it is alleged. The reason 
given by a French officer for these fine qualities of 
the Arab horse, is, that they are not closely stabled. 
The French follow the Arab custom, and give them, 
as the Doctor gives his consumptive patients, plenty 
of fresh air and sunbeams. Their innate good qualities 
having been improved by many generations of this 



Milianah the Damascus of Africa. 



careless care, we find the Arab horse the best type 
to-day of his kind ! 

As we approach MiUanah we find the flora chang- 
ing, for we are rising. The clematis and elder bushes 
appear, and everywhere on the hills and in the fields, 
the prickly broom, giving to the very air a golden 
hue. Blidah was 600 feet above the sea ; Milianah 
is 2700 ; so that we ought to be prepared for great 
vegetable changes. As we approach near, the tall, 
fresh, green poplars stand up like sentinels about its 
walls. Gardens of vines, weeping willows, lemons and 
figs in wonderful abundance appear. Algiers city is 
not so far advanced in vegetation as MiUanah, and 
the latter is so far up in the air ! Wherefore ? The 
solution is easy, Milianah is sheltered beneath Mount 
Zakkar — 6000 feet high, white with marble and snow 
— but a complete protection from the northern 
winds ; and her foliage is exposed to the south and 
its balm of solar radiance. Hot it is, no doubt, in 
summer. Here against the rock on which it is built 
the genuine sun of Africa pours its vertical rays, and 
doubtless burns and bleaches. But Milianah is the 
Damascus of Africa. I was ready to say here, as poor 
Buckle saidj on the last of May, 1862, at Damascus, 
where he died : ' This indeed is worth all the toil and 
danger to come here ! ' Milianah is not only beautiful 
for her vegetable grandeur, but, like Damascus^ because 
of the fountains and streams by which it is caused. 
She not only turns a dozen or more mills by her 
water-power, but irrigates the city and silvers the per- 
pendicular rocks on which her ramparts are erected, 
with cascades, which leap from the terraced sides of the 
mountain and flow through many conduits throughout 
the plain below for miles. The Moors, who once 
made Milianah the seat of their power in Africa, knew 
more of irrigation than any other nation. Southern 



Description of the City. 189 

Spain, the driest part of Europe — -Murcia, Valencia, 
Andalusia, all the lands which they held, from Bagdad 
to Gibraltar — were made to blossom under their 
system. Spain still preserves the system. We shall 
see much of it when we arrive there. 

I wish that I could give you a photograph of Mili- 
anah, warmed somewhat by the colours of the flowers 
which make it so fragrant. Make to your mind the 
imagery of a plain, out of which, rising through several 
miles of gardens, there winds as it rises, the road, up to 
the gate in the rear of the city ; and before you get there, 
picture the limestone rocks grottoed, honeycombed, 
and irregular at places, but all decorated with vine 
and leaf and cascade, and surrounded by a staunch 
wall, within whose fortified escarpments a luxuriance 
of vegetation seems to surround a city of elegant 
proportions, with tower of church and dome of mosque, 
and all flashing white and clean as one of its own 
cascades under the African sun — then you have Mili- 
anah ! It is the glory of Algiers ! Enter within its 
gates ! Walk around its plaza ! Here we find em- 
bowered in foliage, in the centre of the large square, 
a Venetian Campanella. It stands alone and sounds 
the hour for Moslem and Christian. Go down the 
wide avenue to the south side of the city, and you find 
yourself looking from the precipitous walls, upon the 
grand views beneath and afar ! You see no frowning 
beetled brow of rocky fort, fortified by art and nature. 
That is here, but it is visible only from below. You 
gaze down amidst the wild bryony, creeping about 
the rocky sides, making hanging gardens of these 
walls, creeping about where the cactus, the rocks, 
the pomegranates and the fountains, the figs and the 
waterfalls in promiscuous luxuriance form a fore- 
ground. While at the end of the long plain, more 
than twenty miles distant, the mountains stand, one 



190 



The Fat Woman. 



range above the other, and the second above the third, 
long intervals between, for seventy miles and more, 
until the eye from Milianah seizes, as upon its last 
outpost of the vision, the mountain range from which 
the beginnings of the Desert appear! Our way lies 
there ! 

What a leap from Milianah to yonder wall of Atlas ! 
Yet we must partially go over it. Not, however, until 
we exhaust Milianah — having visited its market, where 
the vendors stand with their donkeys loaded with char- 
coal ; visited its plaza by evening, where we saw the 
fat woman, weighing 400 pounds, painted on the 
booth larger than life, and heard her speak in French 
of the immensity of her obesity, and showing her 
jambes and arms, prove to Arab and European that she 
was all their fancy and the artist had painted her ; 
visited the public garden, where we gathered cromatella 
roses as big as your hat — a small round hat ; talked 
among the booths with intelligent Jews, of whom some 
had been to England, and one old man had a son 
in America; seen the Jewesses decked out in gay 
colours, and the Jews in their dark dresses— admired 
the easy air of the latter, and the beautifiil eyes of the 
former, for 'hath not a Jew eyes?' — and a Jewess too ! 

What more, then, hath Milianah ? I could fill a 
chapter with its olden renown as a Moorish city, and 
its military glory as a French fortress. Here were 
once twenty-five mosques ! Now there is but one ! 
Here once lived the great Emir, Abd-el-Kader. His 
house is now occupied by a gunsmith, who works his 
machinery by the water which once fructified the 
Emir's gardens. Lemons and roses once in Moslem 
days, now fusils, and revolvers. Civilization marches. 
Here, long before the Turk and Christian, and their 
historic vicissitudes, the Romans made this the head 
of a colony. The French say : ' We only resume, 



Defence of Milianah against Abd-el-'-Kader. 1 9 1 

after some unpleasant years of interruption, what the 
Romans began.' Here, in 1830, the Emperor of 
Morocco ruled. He departed soon under pressure.. 
In 1837 Abd-el-Kader made his brother Bey of 
Milianah. He did not last long. In 1840 the French 
took and held it against the multitudinous and daring 
attacks of the Emir. For twelve months 1200 French 
soldiers, under the brave Colonel d'lllens, held this 
place. At the end of that time 700 were dead, 40Q 
were in the hospital, and 100 weak men still held it. 
They had determined to blow up the magazine and 
perish, rather than surrender. General Changarnier 
rescued them. They live in history. Poems have 
celebrated their heroic resolution. 

It makes this, and other places which we have seen, 
interesting, to know that Canrobert, Bertheneze, Des- 
michels, Clausel, Bugeaud, the Duke of Orleans (whose 
effigy, in bronze, ornaments the square of Algiers), 
Valle, Pelissier, Randon, McMahon, Niel, and others, 
whose names figure in the wars here^ and in the Crimea 
and Italy — tlie heroes of Sevastopol and Magenta—^ 
and some of whom, like Changarnier, rose above the 
law of the sword, into the elemental law of liberty 
for France — here, on this ground, made their first 
efforts, and won and wore their first laurels. 

Algiers has been the training ground for French 
heroes. It is so still. It is objected to the present 
government of the colony that it fosters the sword, 
and imperils French civism and liberty at home. We 
are at a loss to know how the latter is in jeopardy, 
inasmuch as it is not, and may not — unless Napoleon 
becomes wise, — be in existence. Whether Algiers is 
helped by the military rule, is not so hard a problem 
as whether France is hurt. Of this, however, when 
it comes properly under my eye. That organ is just 
now full of Milianah. True, I see the French soldier 



192 Suggestion to the subjugated Arab. 

as we dash out of the gates ; for is he not there to 
salute ? I see the Arab move around this beautiful 
city, subject and discontented ; but is there any hope 
of his being rescued ? Only one ; let him do as Abd- 
el-Kader did — go off to the Orient, where many 
of the best Moorish families have gone, and in Syria, 
under the ' Sick man,' get better ! There his religion 
is held so sacred that he may refuse his wine and, 
without Christian interdiction, multiply his wives. 



( ^93 ) 




CHAPTER XII. 

PLAIN OF SHELLIF.—TENIET-EL-HAAD.-~ 
CEDARS— DESERT. 

' Yea, the fir-trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying : 
Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against thee.' 

. Isaiah xiv. 8. 

WRITE from Teniet-el-Haad. It is the 
last fortified town held by the French this 
side of the Desert. In the last chapter, we 
had started for this place out of the 
beautiful walled City of Milianah. Milianah might 
have been better described ; its associations and sur- 
roundings are attractive. It is not far south of the 
old Roman City of Cherchel, which is seen sleeping 
under the sea ! Earthquakes make strange bed-fellows ! 
Milianah is the last city of refinement to be found 
before we move toward the Desert. It is so attractive 
both for vegetation, waters, and sky, that it requires an 
effort to leave. But once started, it requires an effort 
to stop. Our horses gallop through crowds of donkeys 
and men about the gates, and then down, down, we 
go — winding off our miles, like thread from a spool, 
until we drop looo feet as easily as ever a player, in 
an Irish sensational drama, leaped from a fictitious 
crag into an imaginary lake, upon a painted island 
in an illusory scene, — upon a feather bed. By the 
Doctor's barometer we fall easily in an hour over looo 
feet ! We are in the plain. The pampa grass growls 
along the road. We meet the heavy laden teams, with 



194 Progress of Steam towards the Desert. 

their many horses and many bells, tintinnabulating 
along the dusty route ; a strange team, as patient as 
the Pennsylvania team of thirty years ago, only they 
have no dog or tar-bucket under the waggon, and 
yet, unlike the Conestoga, they have three horses at 
the wheel and six tandem. They are the avatars of 
civilization. The donkey and camel must get out 
of their way. They, too, must soon go out before the 
railroad. The Arab tent, so exquisite in fancy, and so 
dirty in fact, must give way before the Occident and 
its steam. Even here, on a level 1300 feet above 
Algiers, according to the barometer, the railroad is in 
progress. We see the Arab men and women work- 
ing at it. What hands enterprise employs ! The 
Pacific Railroad once worked squaws. Within two 
years the Desert will be within a few days of the rail- 
road ! Then there will be something fresh to draw 
the gambler from Monaco, and the epicure from 
Nice. 

As we approach Teniet-el-Haad, the thermometer 
opens mildly at 76°, and we ride over the great plain 
of Shellif, between Milianah and the mountains with- 
out turning a hair of our Arab horses. The plain is 
well-cultivated. Like the Metidja, it is full of grain, 
almost ripe for the harvest. Where the grain is not, 
there is the poppy, wild and red ; and the marigold, 
all yellow, — spangles the green garment of Atlas, 
which here sweeps down smoothly over the prairie. 
We stop at a stone well, round-walled, and worn 
with the chain. The Arabs are thick about it. It is 
the same kind of well, according to the pictures, at 
which Jacob met and wooed Rachel. We come to 
the region of small palms, and here in these fields, 
which seem to be claimed by no one, the smutched 
and dirty tents of the Arabs are spread. Around them 



Arrival at Teniet-el-Haad. 195 

we see the goats, sheep, and donkeys. We approach 
the mountains, if not the Desert. The signs betoken 
this. Is not the vulture circHng above us far ? When 
a camel drops in the dusty path, does he not appear 
at once as a speck on the horizon in one instant, and 
in the next is he not in the carcase ? 

As we advance the day gets hot. The wind blows 
from the south. The air grows close and stifling. 
We recall Byron's line — ' Death rides on the sul- 
phury siroc ; ' and at once consult science. The 
thermometer says 92°. We can stand that, for we 
are on the rise, and Teniet-el-Haad will be ours 
before night. Teniet is 4000 feet, and surely it will 
be cold enough there. Over mountains and plains 
till evening, we work our way, and finally come upon 
a walled town of a few hundred people. Soldiers 
appear, cavalry and infantry ; the gun sounds for 
' sunset,' and the music plays. We are in reach of 
European civilization again. We find a lodgment 
at the Teniet Military ' Cercle.' The proprietor finds 
us some rooms in the rear of his inn. They are 
situated upon the ' Rue Mexico' ! 

Luckily we had purchased some powder with which 
to kill fleas. It is a sort of dust. As we were in a 
military hotel, we found that the powder was effective 
on the light infantry. Many a flea bit the dust. But 
the powder had no effect upon another troop ; I will 
call them the heavy artillery. I will not mention 
their familiar ^name. I will only designate them under 
their Latin appellation of cimices. But the Rue 
Mexico will be remembered by us, not alone for its 
name, but for its conflicts. I wish I could describe 
it. We reach this rueful rue through the kitchen of 
the ' cercle,' thence through a back yard into a little 
alley ten feet wide. As we turn into the alley from 

o 2 



196 " R^tel'' an English as well as a French word, 

the yard we see painted on a one-story, whitewashed, 
stone-house, — 




Whether the authorities, whose drum sounds here 
as it did on the docks at Vera Cruz, and in the Plaza 
at Mexico, intended to honour the French triumph 
in America by this designation, or whether the word 
rue was a playful double entendre on the forlorn path 
which French imperialism followed in Mexico — I know 
not. I only know that we lived in that street, nearly 
two days, and made desultory efforts to sleep there 
two nights. The Rue consists of four houses on one 
side and five on the other, one being a stable. I have 
seen an Arab gallanting his donkey down our boule- 
vard ! These houses are covered with a red tile. At 
the west and fashionable end of this street are seen 
the tents of the Turcos ; and above them, upon the 
hill, is the fort, in yellow stone. The houses are 
all whitewashed. I perceive a young Arab, minus 
his clothes, approach. He whistles a French tune. 
He is progressing. Three turbaned people and a dog 
are examining a string-halt mule for a trade. A tall, 
dilapidated African wench, in tatters, makes up the 
tout ensemble of our street. But the swallows do 
not disdain to sing there. The dogs sleep in it, re- 
gardless of fleas. The people have not yet heard of 
MaximiHan's failure, and the name of Mexico is still 
glorious. Does it not run parallel with the Rue 
Napoleon ? and where so near the Great Desert can 
you find a better street than the Rue Napoleon ? 

The houses in Rue Napoleon are numbered. Some 
have 'insurance' signs on them. Respectable denizens 



The Plague of Locusts. 197 

have their sheep in the houses. An African, of choicest 
ebony, has a wheelbarrow and is wheehng whitewash 
through that street ! Chickens and goats are there ! 
One end of the rue runs into an elegant open stable. 
Above the stable, in fine perspective, is a mountain, 
and a road winds up it, and a camel is on the road — 
and the African landscape is thus complete ! Three 
thousand soldiers are here in Teniet. It is the outpost 
of the French occupation. From hence, as a military- 
base of operations, the fights were made. Ammuni- 
tion, provisions, and guns are here kept for emergencies. 
An emergency arises, to wit : 

When we arose in the morning and looked up and 
down the Rue Mexico — lo ! there is a hurrying to and 
fro of brave men ! The trumpets are sounding, the 
drums are beating, and something is up ! Is there an 
insurrection? There is. Where? among the Indi- 
genes ? It is. Where ? in the desert tribes ? Aye, 
marry is it ! Does it mean destruction ? It does — 
dire, direst. On with your armour, men of mettle ! 
Mount your barbs, ye chasseurs ! Pack on your backs 
your knapsacks, O Turcos ! The Locusts are upon 
ye ! As an enemy they are worse to Algiers, by far, than 
fire and sword of fanatic Moslem! The news is hur- 
ried into Teniet, that the army of locusts which ate up 
every green thing three years ago, is on the march ! 
Already their videttes have been seen by us, not know- 
ing what it meant, far up into the alluvial plains, 
near Milianah. The van of the locust army is ap- 
proaching ; nay, is already here and beyond Teniet- 
el-Haad. Five hundred men — before I can under- 
stand the situation — are already on the march to meet 
the host before it reaches the fertile plains. The 
locusts come from the desert, and with instinct equal 
to reason, they are making for the road to Milianah. 
They do not travel over fields and mountains, but on 



198 Devastations of the Locusts in 1867. 

the highway ! At night, when they are tired and 
torpid, the soldiers gather them in heaps and throw 
hme on them. By day they fight them back with 
branches of trees and noises — guns, drums, trumpets, 
blunderbusses, and thunder. In this way they may 
save the country at the north. 

It was a terrible devastation, that by the locusts of 
1867. It was the more so, inasmuch as the natives had 
made no provision for famine and loss of crops as in 
former years. Before the wars with the French it was 
the custom, when crops were gathered, to hide the sur- 
plus in the ground for an exigency. During the wars, 
this surplus was taken by the French. The natives, 
Arab and Kabyle, since then have sold their surplus. 
Hence, when the crops were destroyed by the locusts in 
1867, the natives were in the power of the brokers and 
hucksters, and found no relief. The famine was, there- 
fore, terrible upon them. Over one hundred thousand 
people perished of hunger. 

I remember to have read, in some notes to a poem 
of Southey, that the Arabs of the Desert rejoiced at the 
advent of the locusts, because they devastated the rich 
plains of Barbary, and thus afforded them the oppor- 
tunity safely to push through the Atlas gates, and pitch 
their tents in the desolated plains. Where such terrible 
consequences follow, it is w^orth while to ascertain not 
only how to avert (and in this instance, unhappily, the 
effort was too late, and, therefore, fruitless) but to 
investigate the cause of these insect plagues. They 
are one of the results of the intense sun of the desert — 
for the beams of which, I was not in search. Scientific 
men, in investigating the maximum degree of vital 
manifestation under the sun's rays, have concluded 
that it attains its highest point, as well as its greatest 
variety, richness of hue, and sometimes venom, where 
the solar beam is most intense and the luminary most 



Migrations of Loatsts and Ladybirds to England. 199 

nearly vertical. Hence, life, especially insect life, 
increases as you go from the Pole to the Equator. 
Humboldt has written of its horrors in the South 
American swamps. The beetles and birds of Brazil are 
described by Agassiz. The pyramidal ants of Africa, 
the white ants of India, the parasol ants of Trinidad, 
these are the schoolboy's wonder ! The scorpion 
valley we have ourselves found in Algiers ; but the 
locust phenomena outrank them all^ either as marvels 
or as scourges. 

The masses of locusts not only darken the sun, but 
their migration is conducted on a plan so remarkable 
that human reason can hardly out-march, out-flank, or 
out-general them. They have been known, in their 
short lives, to do more damage than the armies of men. 
Even after death, when great masses have been thrown 
into the sea, they have, when thrown back on the shore, 
poisoned the air by their decomposition. In 1858 
they moved from Barbary on England. They have 
been known to cross from the Continent to Madagas- 
car. They are the same enlightened insect which 
providence used in Egypt nearly 4000 years ago, of 
which it is recorded that ' the locusts went up all over 
the land of Egypt, and rested in aU the coasts of 

Egypt ; very grievous were they They 

covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land 
was darkened ; and they did eat every herb of the 
land.' 

If any one will explain why England in August was 
full of lady bugs, and how they reached that fast- 
anchored isle, I will explain the locust flights. With 
feeble wing — a leap rath€r than a flight — these insects, 
born of the sun, have come to England to eat the 
vermin which infest the hops, with a view to beer and 
ale. Surely there is a special providence in these 
miraculous flights ! 



200 Le Rond Point. 



But our pathway will cross that of the locusts, 
if they push on their columns. We are to move 
on toward the Desert. We are to see the great forests 
of ilex and cedar, south of Teniet, upon the Atlas, from 
which the present chapter is penned. 

The forest is a day's hard ride and many hours' walk 
from Teniet-el-Haad. More ; it is a good two hours' 
walk from the end of the road, called by the French ' Le 
Rond Pointy or turning. It is so called, because it is the 
only point within many miles among these mountains 
where a carriage may turn to go back. It is the point 
to which the French officers at Teniet-el-Haad often 
ride for a day's recreation and pic-nic among the 
mountains. Indeed, we left below us^ at the foot of 
this mountain, a considerable company of them. They 
are bivouacking in the woods, near the hut of a 
lumberman, and under the wide-spreading umbrage of 
the cedars of Lebanon, which help to make the forest 
here. 

I write where I sit, upon the topmost and most 
southern of the range of Atlas, into whose heart we 
penetrated at Fort Napoleon, in East Algiers. Here, in 
Southern Algiers, we have gone through this range of 
Atlas, and have now an uninterrupted look to the far 
south — so far that nothing intervenes between us and 
the limit of our vision, as far as the eye can reach from a 
point 6000 feet above the sea. That is, we have an eye- 
grasp of objects over 150 miles distant! What we 
have seen, when so far north from here — as if in cloud- 
land, or in arctic-land, or in dream-land — is here and 
now real and near ; for we are not only amidst, but 
have surmounted, the mountains which gave such a 
glory to distance. 

Apart from the gratification of the eye, there is 
something very attractive to me in the mountains. I 
naturally go toward and into them. These African 



Chain of African Mountains. 201 

mountains have a spell about them ; they hide the 
mysterious. Beyond their walls what is there — not ? 
The unknown is ever wonderful. They form a part 
of that range which makes Italy. They are classic 
enough to help Scylla and Charybdis into their olden 
bad fame. They make Sicily possible. Crossing 
under the sea, from Sicily to Tunis, they are only 
1500 feet below its blue surface. They are as plainly 
marked to the eye of Captain Maury, or the philo- 
sophic geographer, as if they were above, all clad in 
snow and dressed in greenery. East of Tunis, and as 
far as Egypt, there is a level desert ; west, these moun- 
tains move in majesty towards the Atlantic. Were 
there 1500 feet more upon the ridge which binds 
Sicily to Italy and to Africa, we should have one 
continent less ! Let him who would abolish Africa 
reflect on this. We have seen the glories of this 
range in its most conspicuously interesting aspect, and 
from its grandest positions. 

I find it best, as a saving of hand-labour, if not as a 
matter of interest to reader and writer, to take my 
shots at scenery ' on the wing.' If I wait till next day, 
or till I return to my hotel, or have more leisure — • 
when every day is crowded with fresh incident and 
new phases — something of the interest and all of the 
freshness of description are lost. Therefore, I take my 
ink in pocket, and my ' pen in hand,' and open my 
eyes and write. Whether seated on a crag or in the 
grass ; upon a fallen pine, or ensconced amidst the 
broad arms of the olive — whether in a Kabyle cabin 
or an Arab tent — the best way to reproduce the object 
to the eye at home is to catch it before it ' lights.' If 
I could concentrate into one focus the eyes of your 
mind, and ^y^ them here on this pinnacle of grandeur, 
and then, inspired by one lofty mountain thought, 
turn it round till it sweeps the horizon, you would 



202 The Algerine Desert. 

have a panorama entirely unique and sublime — an 
endless chain of eminent 'royal highnesses/ each 
worthy to wear the crown of Atlas, or the diadem of 
snow wherewith the Alps are honoured. It seems as 
if the mountains here were once mobile billows, 
and had been stayed as they stand, by the Living 
Word ! Turning directly to the south, you perceive 
mountain beyond and above mountain, until . the 
vegetation, here so gigantic, gradually seems to die 
out, and the hills begin with a few patches of isolated 
green to make their halting and timid march towards 
sterility. Still on, and on, until we perceive where 
they end, and, by the aid of a glass, where the yellow 
line of sand begins. There, at last, between us and 
the horizon — just before our eye, no illusory mirage — 
there, is the first footstep of the Inscrutable in the 
sands of the Great Desert of Sahara. It may not be 
the desert itself, but it is enough for a sample. It 
is the Algerine desert ; almost as formidable as Sahara. 
We know that Sahara begins there to be what it 
becomes further on, in its consummate desolation. 
Beyond this line of sand two or three dark green spots 
appear. Are they oases ? In the midst we see a town, 
by the aid of a glass — called Chelala — white, oriental, 
but dim — a resting place for travellers over the great 
sea of sand. Then beyond this — most uncertain, 
waving, and vapoury — a hundred and fifty miles from 
our lofty vision ground, is a line of mountain where 
my pre-historic Tauarigs, or Berbers live and levy 
tribute of the caravans, or plunder. To the left, on 
the west, are three surpassing peaks of mountains. 
They are a part of this range of Atlas, rugged and 
glorious. As we look out from our mountain ground 
of vantage, they seem awful and mysterious, swimming 
like clouds in the upper ether, or standing like weird 
sentinels at the gateways of the Desert. The heart 



Far out of the Track of Travel. 203 

beats as we gaze — beats tumultuously — and the hand 
trembles to record its throbbings. Turning about 
and looking north, the excitement is not lessened ; 
for our vision reaches Milianah, which is over ninety 
kilometres (five kilos to three miles) from Teniet. 
Over this distance we have come — over mountain and 
vale, through cool blast and sirocco heat — not without 
fatigue ; but the fatigue is compensated by this one 
magnificent view, for ever burned by the ' Sunbeams ' 
into our memories. 

We are so far out of the track of travel, even for 
French people — and I was about to say, being on this 
untravelled mountain, for Arabs — that it is worth 
while to give the reader the modus operandi of coming 
hither. Algiers, to English and Americans, is only 
known as a conquered colony, and the battle-ground 
of Abd-el-Kader. The French themselves know only 
a few of its places by personal observation. I mean 
the French tourists. A French writer, in a pamphlet 
which I have picked up (being a plea for a more 
liberal policy for Algiers), says that Algiers is as far off 
as China, as the French look at it only through the 
wrong end of the lorgnette. There is much truth in 
the remark, not alone for its political metaphor, but 
for its literal meaning. We astounded the French 
travellers we have met, when we told them that we 
were bound for Teniet-el-Haad. Indeed, but for the 
fact that two of our party were invalids, unequal to 
120° Fahrenheit, and the sirocco which blows at 
times to that point of the thermometer, we should 
now be moving over the Desert itself. As it is, we 
must be content with a Mosaic vision from the moun- 
tain of promise. We are not permitted to enter in 
upon the land itself. It puzzles me almost to know, 
much more to tell, how we attained this grand 
eminence. Teniet is itself 1200 feet above Milianah, 



204 The Cedars of Lebanon on Mount Atlas. 

and Milianah is 2700 feet above the sea. We under- 
take by a carnage road — as rough a road as any 
country can show (made at first for miHtary, and then 
for forest purposes) — to reach the Great Forest. We 
pass through every variety of scenery and chmate to 
reach it. We find the flowers, trees, and birds of the 
temperate zone as we rise up into the mountains. 
The hyacinth, the blue and yellow orchis ; the blue- 
bird, jay, and cuckoo ; the oak, ash, and cedar, — all 
salute us. What oaks these are ! Some are deciduous, 
just drawing over their naked wintry fingers the green 
gloves of spring. Some are, like the evergreen oaks 
of Florida, hanging with sad, grey pendants of moss. 
As we rise upon Atlas' sides we see, far off below, our 
road from Milianah, over peak after peak, and into 
plain after plain. We are going west rather than 
south, and before us are the mountains of snow and 
cedars, and behind us the green wheat and barley 
fields of the Teniet environs. I count six ranges of 
mountains in the east and north, and as we move still 
on and up, the few red roofs of Teniet seem like 
specks in the distance. At first we see a few young 
cedars. They are conical in form, but how unlike 
the mature cedar which we soon meet — the limbs of 
which are covered with green, and are as thin and flat 
as a table. Some are gigantic. It is hardly the same 
graceful, little tree we first perceived. Quantum 
mutatus. After fighting the north wind and the 
sirocco for a thousand years its trunk is, as it ought 
to be, immense, and its limbs and foliage beaten down 
at right angles with its trunk. As you look down 
on these forests, it seems as if you could walk over 
their level floor of frosted green. These are the verit- 
able cedars of Lebanon. 

I know that efforts have been made to depreciate 
the ' glory of Lebanon.' It is said that Lamartine is 



Lamar tine s Visit to Lebanon. 



responsible, by his grandiose description, for the poetic 
aggrandisement of the cedars of Lebanon ; for they 
are, he says, grand and impressive ; they tower above 
the centuries, they know history better than history 
knows itself; they astonish the people of Lebanon. 
Evidently, they did not astonish Madame Olympe 
Audouard, when she visited Lebanon; but M. Alphonse 
Lamartine did. She found the trees dwarfed and ugly, 
and Lamartine imaginative in more senses than one. 
^ Shall I carve your name under M. Lamartine's, 
Madame ? ' said her guide. She asked if he had been 
with the poet when he carved his name. ' Not at all,' 
w^as the remarkable reply, ' for he never came here ; 
but, like a wise gentleman, remained in Beyrout, and 
sent me here to cut his name.' 

Such at least is the story as it goes the round. 
Whatever of truth there may be in Madame's repre- 
sentation, these cedars of Lebanon deserve all the 
eulogy which Lamartine has bestowed on them. Dean 
Stanley, in his exhaustive and elegant volume on 
Palestine ' recognized the sacred recess of the present 
cedars of Lebanon.' He proceeds to describe the scene 
and the impressions ; from which we learn that Lamar- 
tine did not exaggerate. Above the moraines of 
ancient glaciers, and even above the semicircle of the 
snowy range of the summit of Lebanon, is a single 
dark massive clump — the sole spot of vegetation that 
marks the mountain wilderness. This is the Cedar 
Grove. The outskirts are clothed with the younger 
trees, whose light, feathery branches veil the more 
venerable patriarchs in the interior of the grove. 
There are twelve old trees remaining, called by the 
Maronites the twelve apostles ! Their massive branches 
are clothed with a scaly texture, and contorted with 
all the multiform irregularities of age. From these 
David had received his grand impressions. The shiver- 



2o6 Dean Stanley s Description of Lebanon. 

ing of their rock-like stems by the thunderbolt is to 
him like the shaking of the solid mountain itself. Dean 
Stanley further remarks upon the peculiar grace of 
the long sweeping branches, feathering down to the 
ground — as we have the transplanted cedar in Europe, 
and which, he says, is unknown to the cedars of Le- 
banon. He pictures the latter as we saw them in 
the Atlas ; the young trees holding up the old, and 
the elder holding up the younger trees. He speaks 
of their height and breadth, and does not forget, what 
we saw all through the forest of the Atlas, that it 
was full of birds of gay plumage and clear note. It 
was out of these ancient trees that the Temple of 
Solomon was made ; so that it was called the house of 
the forest of Lebanon. Tyre and Sidon built their 
ships out of these cedars, and their fame went with 
ancient commerce to the ends of the then known earth. 
Sennacherib could find no image so suitable to the 
expression of his power as this : ' By the multitude of 
my chariots am I come to the heights of the moun- 
tains, and to the sides of Lebanon, to the height of 
his cedars, and the beauty of his cypresses.' 

Our experience with the chariot was limited, com- 
pared to that of Sennacherib. We ascended to the 
height of his border, and the forest of his park, on 
foot. 

The cedars of Judea, aye, even those described by 
the Psalmist, cannot be, as we believed them to be 
before the enchantment of observation, larger or more 
beautiful than those of the Atlas. Where do they not 
grow here ? There are two forests of them, many 
miles square in area. Some of the trees burst through 
rocks ; some grow out of peaked mountain tops ; 
some look so natty that it seems as if they were a 
company of Parisian ladies, exaggerated a thousand 
fold in size, and carrying their parasols with a genteel 



I 



The Climax of Vegetable Glory, 207 

crook of the elbow and the latest Grecian bend. The 
colour of the cedar foliage is that of tea green, with 
a sort of whitish frost work. Some of my readers 
may have seen the cedars of Lebanon. Some at least 
have seen, in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, the first 
one ever brought into Europe, in 1740. Its counter- 
part is here reflected in a thousand forms and much 
larger and multiplied infinitely. 

Among these living cedars, above us and below us, 
we find many blasted and many charred by Are ; but 
even in their desolation, they seem sacred and sublime. 
The live oaks about them, covered with brown, gray, 
and green mosses, would of themselves repay us for 
this forest trip, had we seen no cedars. We missed 
our trip to the larch forests of Corsica, owing to the 
snows of February. Those larches were 170 feet high, 
and immense in diameter. These cedars are not quite 
so high, but as great in girth. They are broad and wide, 
fit emblems of Atlas — upon whose head they grow. 
I measured one of the two under which we lunched ; 
and in a fair way, three feet from the ground. It 
measured thirty feet around ; not equal to the ' big 
trees ' of California ; but big enough I 

Nature exaggerates her growth here to compensate 
for the vegetable lack in the Great Desert so near. 
Nature does nothing in a hurry. Having reached the 
climax of vegetable glory in these oaks and cedars, she 
gradually moves down the ravines and mountains, 
until there is not a blade of grass left where the Desert 
may be said to begin its empire ; for we are outside of 
the Tell, or cultivable region. And even in these 
forests, before we see the Desert, the mind is prepared 
for Desolation. One-fourth of the great trees are 
blasted ; but their skeletons remain. The bones of 
their gigantic bodies are here ; and in all postures. 
Some are erect, as if they died proudly facing the 



2o8 The Heart of the Great Forest. 

blast ; some devotional, upon their knees, as if warned 
of death and praying to be delivered ; some grotesquely 
on all fours, or flat on their back, big enough even 
when down and dead, to frighten the ordinary wood- 
man. But I must record the truth. The woodman 
has come hither, and he does not spare these cedars of 
Lebanon ! The Scripture is fulfilled ; ' Howl fir-tree, 
for the cedar is fallen ! ' The Government have con- 
ceded to the railroad company the privilege of cutting 
these trees as sleepers. They are being slaughtered : 
but it will be years yet before the glory of Lebanon 
departs. It is so difficult to reach them among these 
mountains, and so far to haul them. It is a pity the 
workmen could not clear up the forests by taking out 
those which are half-alive and half-dead ; or, if you 
please, remove those unhealthy cedars with large pro- 
tuberances, called gout stones, or those which resemble 
the description of the old Indian orator — ' dead at 
the top.' 

But we have not yet reached the heart of the forest. 
The barometer registers only 4500 feet. The vegeta- 
tion varies as we rise. Here is the schoolmaster's 
ferula again, and the blackberry pushing its way to the 
very edge of the Desert, and inviting comparison with 
the old oaks. Flowers appear in great abundance. 
The wild pea, the butter-cup and the daisy, deck the 
road-side! How beautiful the wild roses look — the 
French eglantine — draping the old rocks ! How came 
Narcissus here ? Where is his mirror of tranquil 
water, in which to dress his vanity ? Here is the 
purple, velvety pansy, as large and as sweet as that of 
England ! It lies in clusters, as if native to the Atlas, 
and used to the breath of 5000 feet elevation. Here, 
too, is the hawthorn ; not numerous, but here ! How- 
came it in Africa ? Is it indigenous, or is this May in 
England, or April in America r Where is the solution ? 



The Owl and the Pelican of the Wildemiess. 209 



Listen ! You hear it in the voice of the birds. The 
cuckoo has had an indigestion, or the swallow, or jay, 
or that other unknown bird of passage, whose note is 
familiar to English ears. They have brought the 
undigested seeds here, just as the birds in Corsica 
have sowed that island with the wild olive. What 
that other bird is — even the learned Doctor, our com- 
panion — does not know. It seems to say, as it sings : 
' Come ! come ! sit here — sit here ! ' The Doctor 
answers : ' I must kill one of you, my beauties — when 
I get to Surrey, in order to ascertain the bird which 
helps us to plant the pansy and the hawthorn on the 
ridges of Atlas ! ' But the kind-hearted Doctor will 
not kill ; he would rather read Audubon. 

Still we travel up— through the zones. The road 
becomes nearly impassable. We walk mile after mile, 
around the awful edges of precipices, looking down 
sheer thousands of feet. We startle the owl, as we 
startled the pelican in the plains of the Kabyle. ' The 
owl of the desert and the pelican of the wilderness.' 
The oriental imagery of the Bible is here and thus 
illustrated, for the owl flies towards Sahara, as the 
pelican flew for the waste marshes of the plain. Still we 
move up and out of the Temperate toward the Arctic 
zone. Snow appears, and near it, some green spots of 
grass. The Doctor, who is ever alive to botanic 
utilities as well as beauties, has found here the mari- 
time squills. The natives call it a wild onion ! Squills ! 
My mouth expectorates in the pronunciation ! It 
covers all the Algerian land, high and low. It has 
followed us east and west from Algiers. He has 
found something else. It is the hedera matcritanica / 
' Good ! ' I say ; its associations are more agreeable. 
It is the African ivy — -as beautiful as that which 
varnishes with its glistening green the Gothic glories 
of the English and Irish abbeys and minsters. Now 

p 



2IO 5^00 Feet above the Level of the Sea. 

we approach the rocky eminences, looking down from 
which we see our turning place, the Rond Point. 

It is a green plateau; down below us, and across 
the wide valley over there, we hear the French officers 
enjoying their picnic. We give the Indian war- 
whoop. It is responded to by an Arab shout. We 
finally approach the spot. Horses are found tethered 
under the trees. Bottles of wine are opening, and 
game disappearing from the table. We are met with 
hospitality. The officers say that we are about 5000 
feet above the level of the sea. We select two 
immense cedars of Lebanon, having a circumference 
of about thirty feet each, as our tent ! Under it we 
picnic. An Arab boy, the same who killed the 
porcupine here last evening and to-day gave us the 
quills, is on the alert to bring us a jar of mineral 
water, all cool, from the famous springs near. The 
Doctor analyzes it. No need of his charcoal hlterer 
for this water. It has a name and fame as old as that 
of the Roman days. 

Finishing our lunch, we feel as if our object were 
not accomplished. There are mountains still above 
us. We are on the last ridge of this range of the 
Atlas; but we have no view of the Desert. Shall 
we ascend ? It is an untried path, but it looks 
feasible, except this, that we have two ladies, and we 
two men are supposed to be invalids. The Doctor 
has a cavity in his lungs, and as for me, no matter ! 
We resolve. The Doctor proposes in a methodical 
w^ay to rise with the occasion. His aneroid barometer 
will measure his upward path. One hundred feet and 
then five minutes rest ; another hundred and then ten 
minutes ; another hundred, fifteen, &c, Thus he 
will save his breath and his lungs. At least, he will 
try the ascent. I suggest, as the mountain is very 
steep, and time is of the essence of the operation, that 



Excelsior ! 211 



we had better begin at once, as we have 1000 feet to 
climb. We could not go much higher, as our aneroid 
barometer marks only 6000 feet, and it would blow 
up if we attempted more. Allons ! First rest, by all 
hands, on a cedar tree, hewn and ready to be made 
into ties for the railroad at Milianah ! Second rest, 
two hundred feet, Doctor in a rocky, curule chair, 
cushioned with venerable moss ; ladies at his feet, 
near a charred cedar, hollow, but decorated with the 
honeysuckle ; the other invalid in advance, prospect- 
ing the ravine for easy paths. Third rest; Doctor 
rouses, hits Atlas about the jugular, and falls in the 
ring ; wind still good ! Fourth rest ; he is able to 
start ten minutes sooner ; on and up we go — on and 
up, until the barometer indicates that we have risen 
800 feet. The Doctor forgets his methodicity and 
his lungs. The writer is in advance, but runs against 
a perpendicular rock 200 feet high, and reposes in 
despair near a snow-bank ; he makes a battery of 
snow-balls, assaults the party below by way of recrea- 
tion, and is assaulted in turn. He retreats gracefully 
before numbers, makes a detour of the rocks, rises 
to the top of the ridge, and lo ! disappointment and 
perspiration ! another mountain beyond, and another 
valley below, and no view and no Desert yet ! The 
Doctor assumes command and directs operations. I 
am scout. We turn to the west, follow the ridge. 
The barometer is near the bursting point ; the ladies 
resolute ; the Doctor still sound. At last, at last, after 
refreshing our lips with African snow^ under the cry 
of 'Excelsior,' we reach the summit! We are re- 
warded. We come upon the wild, wonderful spot, 
where I write this chapter. True, we are not so high 
as other mountain tops. We are not quite as high 
as Mount Washington. We are more than three 
times as high as the Tore mountains of Killarney. We 

p 2 



212 Optimism. 



are higher than the Catskill Mountain, but we have a 
view such as I have never before had, and which I 
have I fear in vain endeavoured to describe. 

Around is snow and grass ; and our table for writing 
is a rock covered with a greenish dark moss. Again 
and again we gaze off into the distant south. We see 
no caravans winding their way to or from the Desert, 
but we see the mountains of the wild tribes, who levy 
their tribute and defy the French. The level, herbless 
plain grows more yellow, almost red, as the sun sinks ; 
more like ' a thirsty land where no water is.' The air 
far away seems hot to look at ; yet we look at it from 
a cool, snow-surrounded mountain. We play at snow- 
balls here, and within view, the ostrich hides her eggs 
for hatching in the burning sand. 

As we gaze in deep amazement at the view, clouds 
begin to gather on the west and north. They are full 
of moisture from Labrador, says the Doctor, and are 
trying to do something for Sahara! If these moun- 
tains were only larger, there would be glaciers and 
rivers, and then Sahara would not be — sand ! She 
would be all through as fruitful as one of her own 
oases. These rocks require only pulverization and 
water to be — food. Give them water and the sunbeams 
will make them • fertile. This is one of the Doctor's 
thoughts. He sees camelias in muck, dates in clouds, 
wine in running brooks, and good in everything. He 
is, in fact, an optimist. He finds utility in fleas. 
They tend to make people cleanly. He even found 
some excellence in the scorpion I killed. He did not 
tell me what. I suppose because it furnished food for 
— Dervishes ! But in the economy of nature, he does 
not exaggerate the influence of clouds and mountains. 
Many of his climatic and sanitary conclusions about 
Algiers are based on those very phenomena of wind 
and rain and mountains ; for here the clouds are 



Climatic Inflttences of the furnace^ Sahara. 213 



drawn by gravitation to the mountains ; and but for 
these clouds, the oases would be sand, and irrigation 
would lose its fertilizing power for the plains. Without 
these clouds no one could sing the missionary hymn 
about ' Afric's sunny fountains,' much less its ' golden 
sand.' 

But for these clouds, or for the cause which draws 
them hither, what might not the opposite coast be? 
If Sahara — a furnace — sending to the upper air its 
heat, and sucking the north winds with their clouds 
and rains from the coasts of Spain and France, leaving 
them dry, and refreshing with copious rains the plains 
of Algiers ; if Sahara were not as she is — a sucker — 
Northern Africa would not be so cool and damp, 
nor would Spain and France be so warm and dry ! 
These are not paradoxes. But we have no time for 
reflection. The storm comes. We are far away from 
habitation or succour, in case of danger. We retreat 
in disorder — a little damp, but all safe. Teniet-el- 
Haad we reach, and we sleep on the borders of bar- 
barism and sterility, in the ' Rue Mexico.' We sleep ; 
unconscious of the terrible fact, which we afterwards 
ascertained,— that we had been in that part of Atlas 
where lions and tigers are common. We sleep ; for 
we are very weary, and the fleas have lost their power 
to disturb us. Is the Spanish proverb true which 
says, ^ Quien duerme bien no le pican las pulgas ' f 
He who sleeps well cares not for fleas ! 

I close this chapter in Milianah, to which on the 
next day we retrace our steps. We pass through the 
camp of scorpions — where I killed an ugly, venomous 
specimen. It was reckless on our part to pic-nic in 
this neighbourhood. Not because of the colony of 
convicts — some of them sneaking about in the brush ; 
but on account of the scorpions. But our pic-nic was a 
delight. We almost filled the ideal of the worthy Fuller, 



214 The Salt River. 



in describing the early monks, who left the city for 
the wilderness. As for their food, the grass was their 
cloth ; the ground their table ; fruits and berries their 
dainties ; hunger their sauce ; their nails their knives ; 
their hands their cups ; the next well their wine-cellar, 
and what they lacked in the cheer of their bill of fare, 
they had in grace. 

Lunch being over, we pass over streams lined with 
oleander in such profusion, that when it comes out in 
June ' Afric's sunny fountains ' will be all aflame. We 
follow the meanderings of a stream whose foam is not 
amber and whose gravel is not gold ; but we find its 
bed incrusted.with — salt ! On inquiring of our drivers, 
we find that we are near ' Salt River.' I had supposed 
that stream, the synonym for the Limbo of departed 
politicians, — was somewhere in America, although I 
knew Africa had something to do with it. My com- 
panion, who is slightly tinged with the fanatical, 
suggested playfully that I ought to go up to the 
sources of Salt River. 'I should find some friends;' 
but as a few choice friends still remained absent, I 
refused. 

One peculiarity this Salt River has. It is illus- 
trated in the sketch. Fifty Arab women go there 
daily, and after the water has run over the rock and 
the sun has evaporated it, they scrape the rocks, and 
thus ^ earn their salt.' We met four Arab women 
and one child on their road home to their tents from 
the salt region. They had kettles full of salt, and as 
they are samples of the Arab women, I will photograph 
and anatomize them. They were dressed in a — 
chemise, which had two loops to let- the arms through 
at the humerus ! These openings are unnecessarily 
continued down to the ileum, thereby allowing the 
curious profane to obtain a vision of the — female form 
divine and dirty ! Their feet are encircled with anklets 




< 

h 
< 

U 

o 

< 






Arab and Moorish Women. 215 



of steel or some dark metal, or ebony. We did not 
handle them. The feet presented no useless conven- 
tionalities of sandal or shoon. Their outspread pha- 
langes took firm, yet graceful grasp of the earth. No 
fear of scorpion did they show. In the absence of 
their male protector — for they were all wives of one 
lord — they showed no fear of us Giaours. Their eyes 
sparkled as they saluted us. One of the number tried 
to say : ' Bon jour ;' but her guttural Arabic made it 
sound like — ' Bad job ! ' A handkerchief confined 
their raven hair, over which there was a turban of 
enormous altitude, requiring the Doctor's barometer 
to measure it. They did not look beautiful ; nor do 
their smoky tents or filthy surroundings look enticing. 
They do not wash much. The Arabs reproach the 
Moors for living in houses. The latter reproach the 
Arabs for not making their ablutions, which is a part 
of Mohammedanism. Both female and male Arab seem 
to be varnished over with layers of dirt. The nitro- 
genous elements, decaying in their bodies and going 
out of the skin, produce an odour very unlike that of 
jasmine or attar of roses ! 

We meet, however, when nearing Milianah, many 
families of Moors, and some Arabs, too, very unlike 
the females from Salt River. I present one of these 
ladies pictorially, as in marked contrast to the Salt River 
dames ! These ladies of Milianah were riding, and 
were covered with white veils. All but one eye was 
hidden, and sometimes even that ; but they will peep 
a little. They sometimes walk, bearing their baby 
behind on their backs, the husband a rod or so in 
advance. Slaves follow them, and they all follow their 
full-turbaned master. He still lives, or rather lingers, 
near Milianah, and praises the days past and sighs to 
be afar from French rule and Hebrew hberty, afar off 
in Syria, with his old neighbour and brave chief, 



2l6 



Return to Milianah. 



Abd-el-Kader ! While going up, we meet a score 
of families coming down the mountain from Mi- 
lianah. Among them is a couple on horse-back — 
Jacob behind on the crupper, and Rachel astride in 
front. All these people look proud and cleanly, and 




1 



Lady of Milianah, full dress. 

no wonder. They have been to Milianah — city of 
fountains — to the baths. They are tending home- 
wards. As we move up through the leafy and floral 
paradise to the walled city gates, — the waters plash 
down the garlanded rocks, the clouds begin to grow 
orange and red over Atlas as the sun sinks, and the 
warm breath comes from the south, showing that the 



The Delectable Mountain. 2 1 7 



north-west storm of yesterday has been smothered by 
the sirocco. As we ascend and look below us, and 
follow the white thread of the spiral road we have 
come by, and thence glance over the plains and moun- 
tains to the distant range of the Atlas, where two days 
ago we stood, we are not sorry that a kind Providence 
has permitted us to see so many of His terrestrial 
wonders, and to return to the vicinity of comfort in 
this beautiful city of Milianah, upon this most Delec- 
table Mountain ! 



( 2l8 ) 




CHAPTER XIII. 



CONFLICT OF CIVILIZATIONS.— FARE WFLL TO- 
AFRICA. 

' The crescent glimmers on the hill, 
The mosque's high lamps are quivering still, 

but who, and what art thou 

Of foreign garb ? ' 

Byron's ' Bride of Abydos.' 

H E reader will perceive that I have travelled 
over five degrees of longitude, and very 
considerably inland toward the 35th degree 
of latitude ; that is, from Fort Napoleon on 
the borders of Constantine on the East, to Oran, 
where I write, not far from the borders of Morocco. 
He will understand that I have travelled not hurriedly 
in railroad cars, but in carriage, and on foot; and 
have thus had opportunities to correct first impres- 
sions, and to know the country for what it is. He 
will also perceive that I have indulged in details, 
seemingly trifling, but with a view to elucidate the 
questions growing out of the conflict of antagonistic 
systems and civilizations. There is no country like 
Algiers in this regard. Here is a Mohammedan people 
under Christian rule ; the religion of the ruled 
tolerated — almost fostered in a way- — by the ruler, 
and the ruler doing all in his power to attract the 
affection and loyalty of the subject, and that failing, 
holding the people pinned to the throne by the 
bayonet. There have seldom been less than 100,000 
French soldiers in Algiers ; yet I do know, from 
conversation with leading Mussulmans, that their 



I 



French Discouragement of A Igerian Exports. 1 1 9 



hatred of the French is inveterate and irreconcilable. 
The Mohammedan religion and customs are, however, 
decaying before the French. But it is still a problem 
whether France had not better do with Algiers, as 
the conscript did who caught the Algerine tigress, — 
let her ' go.' I do not see that she intends to do 
that. Her hold is rather growing tighter. True, she 
does not realize much, — in fact, pays more than she 
receives in revenue. But she is building bridges, walls, 
docks, forts, turnpikes, and railroads, and inducing 
immigration by offers of land — rich land — at cheap 
rates. But the immigration is not increasing very 
fast. The land is untaken. There is protection 
enough given now by the army against native out- 
break. There is no trouble in reaping, if you plant, 
provided there be no untimely fog, or sirocco, or 
locust raid. The land is very rich, well watered, well 
rained upon, and labour is cheap. It is, however, 
complained, with great emphasis, that the home Go- 
vernment discriminates against Algerian produce ; not 
only by taxes here, but by heavy duties, even against 
the grain here raised and imported into France. 
Algiers is treated as a foreign country, and that too 
by a nation which claims M. Chevalier as its political 
economist, and free trade as its policy. Because the 
farmers of Southern France howl for protection against 
the importation of Algerine wool, wheat, barley, and 
horses, the Government yields. The advantages of 
Algiers as an agricultural colony— once acknowledged, 
*and so great in grain that Rome was fed from it — are 
dissipated under the insane clamour of ' protection to 
home industry.' Even the Arab horse is ' protected' 
against visiting the world out of Algiers ! 

I have already incidentally shown why Algiers is so 
fruitful. The desert below, by its heat, draws the rain 
clouds from the north. Their cisterns are sucked over 



220 Experiment of Algerian Colonization. 



the sea, which keeps them full, and they are emptied 
on the mountains and plains of Algiers. Hence, when 
the soil of Southern Spain and France is cracked and 
seamed with heat, Africa is damp, misty, cool, and 
fertile. Her fields and mountain sides are carpeted 
with all the hues of Flora. Her streams are fringed 
with oleander and tamarisk, and her rocks are draped 
and tasselled with the Mauritanian ivy. Her very 
moors (I do not mean the Moors) are mosaics of 
every dye ; her road-sides are odorous with roses and 
jasmine. 

P'rom the soil, mountains, harbours, climate, waters, 
flora, and the history of Roman successes here, as also 
from the proximity of this colony to France, I infer 
that France will hold Algiers, and in time make it an 
exception to her general system of colonization, by 
making it a success. France has had Algiers about 
thirty-six years ; but never so as to control it in tran- 
quillity until recently. Her experiment, therefore, 
has not been fairly tested. Had not England been 
jealous of French power in Africa, or in the Orient, 
France would have had control of the three pashalics 
of Morocco, Tunis, and Algiers as long ago as 1827. 
A treaty was made for that purpose with the Turkish 
power, which had held them from 15 16, but the 
intervention of England with the Porte prevented its 
consummation. 

French blood has flowed freely here. Half a mil- 
lion have perished to hold Algiers. The war with 
Abd-el-Kader, whose plume cut the French like a 
sword, for when he was in the saddle all Moslemdom 
were his retainers — lasted from 1837 to 1848. The 
French did not keep faith with him on his surrender. 
They imprisoned him in the island of Marguerite 
for four years — a beautiful isle near Cannes, which I 
have described, out of whose barred castle-windows 



Productions and Prosperity of A Igiers. 1 1 1 

he could look out upon the sea toward Algiers — a sea 
as unstable as his own vicissitudes of fortune. Perfidy 
and blood, confiscation and plunder, these are the 
penalties exacted when the strong w^ar with the weak. 
By some overruling law of political gravitation, which 
attracts the minor States to the greater ; or which 
compels the less civilized people to yield to those 
of superior civilization, Algiers has become absorbed 
in France. The word is, that God has commissioned 
France to redeem North Africa ! France accepts ! 
The military and civil administration of France, with 
its system of magistrates and prefects, its division of 
military and civil territory, departments, arrondisse- 
ments, and communes, combining a central, provincial, 
and municipal government, leaving much of domestic 
matters to the native people, especially as to religion, 
marriage, and indigenous customs, remitting much of 
the administration of justice to the Kadis, or Mussul- 
man judges, all these are features of the policy pre- 
vailing here to-day. But there is no representation 
as yet of Algiers in the Chamber of Deputies, and 
great complaint is made that the interests of the 
people are neglected by the irresponsible pro-consular 
system. 

Still, Algiers does show prosperity. Her agriculture 
flourishes, but her market is restricted. Oats, beans, 
sorghum, and all the cereals are readily raised, and the 
production seems to be augmented with every year. 
The forests of cedar, cypress, and oak have been 
noticed in our visit to the South ; but the fruits of 
the olive, the palm, and the orange almost rival the 
grains of the soil for their production. The tobacco 
is held to be next to that of Cuba; and its production 
and manufacture is a large business. Everybody 
smokes in Algiers ; cigarette is the favourite style with 
all. The cotton culture has been quickened by recent 



222 Injurious effects of Polygamy. 

events in America. The quality raised is that of the 
long staple, and of the species familiar to the Carolina 
coast. A volume might be written of the mineral 
springs and mineral resources of Algeria. Every 
coloured and veined marble — blue, red, white, and 
black — is found here. Porphyry is to be had in Con- 
stantine. Wages are not high ; they vary in the 
different provinces. A good carpenter will make from 
three to five francs a day, and a gardener or common 
labourer about two francs. But it costs little to live. 
Beef and mutton are common and good ; milk of cow, 
goat, and mare is ever at hand. One thing may be 
said, that Algiers is prolific in births. Doctors unite 
about this. There is something about Africa peculiar in 
this respect. The births far exceed the deaths. Com- 
merce increases, despite restrictions. But the United 
States have no part in this commerce. I find no 
record of any American vessels at the ports. Our 
consular duties are restricted to rescuing naturalized 
citizens from the French army. 

The principal drag upon the prosperity of Algiers is 
the Mohammedan faith and polygamy. I am not 
illiberal toward the Moslem. He has much of interest 
in his religion, even for a Christian. The Moham- 
medan is not so intolerant as he was ; nor has he been 
so intolerant to the Christian as to the Jew. The 
Koran itself refers to the Saviour ' as one who came to 
save from sin ; as one conceived without corruption in 
the body of a virgin, tempted of Satan, created of the 
Holy Spirit ; as one who established an Evangel which 
Mohammed confessed ! ' But it offers to the faithful 
a heaven of sensuality : nay, seven of them — one of 
silver, of gold, of precious stones, of emeralds, of 
crystal, of fire-colour ; and the seventh heaven — a 
delicious garden whose fountains and rivers are milk 
and honey, whose trees are perennially green, whose 



The Sensual Paradise of Mohammed. 



fruit is so beautiful and delicious that a drop of it in 
the sea would change its brackish taste into sweetness. 
The mansions of this heaven are filled with all the 
imagination desires, and the believers espouse there the 
most wonderful of lovely houris — -for ever yoting and 
for ever virgin ! Thus you see that the highest heaven 
of the Mohammedan smacks of his earthly home 
where the senses are gratified, and where there is no 
limit upon his loves. Of course so long as this is his 
religion, and when, too, wives are purchased for money 
at pleasure, the family, which is the base of the social 
pyramid, cannot be said to be a blessing, but a curse. 
The author of the ' Crescent and. the Cross ' thus hits 
the nail on the head : — ' In Paradise he finds the extreme 
of sensual enjoyment, as a reward for the mortification 
of the senses in this life ; so that his self-denial on earth 
is only an enlargement of the heroic abstinence of an 
alderman from luncheon on the day of a city feast. 
His heavenly hareem consists of 300 houris, all perfect 
in loveliness. What chance has his poor wife of being 
required under such circumstances !— it is supposed she 
has a heaven of her own, in some place or other, but 
as to her substitute for houris the Koran is discreetly 
silent. In Paradise is to be found every luxury of 
every appetite, with every concomitant, except satiety 
, and indigestion.' Hence, the Mohammedan has for-, 
ever in his appetite and faith a canker to his prosperity. 
He must give way. France, not over scrupulous in 
her own domestic ways, is nevertheless reforming even 
Algiers in this particular. 

The influence of the Crimean war upon the Orient 
reaches even to Algiers. The Turkish empire was 
not so much shaken as it was propped by that war ; 
for the real power of Government to-day in Constan- 
tinople is not in the Sultan, who sits cross-legged, 
sipping his coffee, and smoking his chibouque on the 



224 Moslem Girls Schools under Frejich auspices. 

Bosphorus. His favourite occupation is to feed his 
chickens and ducks — of which he has a poultry yard 
full; while Russia, France, and England, from their 
ambassadorial palaces at Pera, dominate as well over 
the roofs of Stamboul, as over the various nationalities 
which make up the East. 

The harem has been invaded. The chief wives, or 
the wives of the chief Turks, seek European society — 
or the society of European women. They import the 
tawdry ornaments of Vienna and Paris, and their 
dresses are no longer the velvet jacket and trousers, 
but they have the stays, the gaiters, the long trains, 
and chignons of their fashionable sisters of the West. 
They are even learning the piano ! 

All these domestic reforms are traceable to the 
influence of the Crimean War, which opened, with 
much authority, the secluded portals of Oriental life. 
France is doing the same just as effectually in Algiers, 
because she wears the velvet glove over her mailed 
hand. For instance, she not only permits, but aids 
the Moslem schools. Therein the children of the 
faithful are taught, as of yore, by Moslem teachers. 
Many of the institutions, about Algiers especially, are 
under the care of French matrons. The girls of 
Moslem families come to these institutions to learn 
the arts of domestic life, including, as I have explained, 
the refinements of embroidery, toward which their 
delicate, henna-tinted fingers seem to have an instinc- 
tive tendency. While at these schools, they are 
guarded from Moslem eyes of the opposite sex, but 
not from those of the Christian ; and, when they return 
at evening to their homes, they are mufifled up in their 
awkward mantles and head-gear, and conducted by 
some one who is approved by the parents. My wife 
visited one of these establishments. She tried to tell 
me how the girls put on their long, winding, won- 



I 



Ultimate Extinction of Polygamy probable. 225 

drous involutions of dress for the street promenade. 
But I cannot repeat her description. 

Again, I think the French influence, while it tole- 
rates the existence of Mohammedanism, has its effect 
upon polygamy ; not to abolish but to mitigate. It 
will in time abolish it. As we used to hear it said 
about American slavery, that we might repose in the 
hope of its ultimate extinction, so we prophesy that 
much about polygamy. This remaining '■ relic of 
barbarism ' will, perhaps, be found last on the soil 
of my native land. Proud thought! For example, 
you rarely find a Mohammedan in contact with the 
Christian community, and having relations of business 
or otherwise with it, who has more than one wife. 
Not but that he can afford more. Out on the plains, 
where the Arabs roam, or up in the mountains, where 
the Kabyles farm, there you may find the sheikhs, 
or chief men, w^ho have means, also having several 
wives. The people generally adhere to the Christian 
practice. The wives appreciate it. They are very 
much more docile and dutiful, when they are alone 
the mistress of the household. The other day, while 
at Algiers, my wife was invited to visit a Mussulman 
family — that of Mustapha Rayato — a m^erchant of 
Algiers. The lady of the household— and there was 
only one — gave a sparkling answer to the American 
lady, when the latter inquired after the other wives. 
If you will allow me, I will extract the scene from 
the journal of my wife, not alone for the colloquy 
about polygamy, but as a better description of the 
Moorish domesticity than any man can give. Thus 
the journal :— 

'Our visit had been previously arranged, and a 
promise made that we should see all the trinkets, 
jewellery, &c., of a Moorish household. As Mustapha 
Rayato led the way to his house, he enlarged upon 



226 Interior of a Moorish Household. 

the narrow streets through which v/e were passing. 
He said that once he, too, could afford to hve in 
an elegant house in better quarters, but the French 
came, and all was changed. He had sold his house, 
taken one much inferior, and kept his shop like one 
of the common people. We did not see the degra- 
dation of that, but ovit of respect to our host, we for- 
bore comment, 

' We enter the ordinary Moorish house by a large, 
double, common, wooden door. It opens into a small 
square vestibule. A neatly whitewashed stairway is in 
front, and a door at the side opens to the inner court. 
The double piazza incloses the court, and the lower 
rooms are devoted to the servants. The stairs were 
of slate ; and I noticed their extreme cleanliness was 
not in the least disturbed by the boots of the gentle- 
man, since our host had quietly dropped his shoes at 
the door, and encased his feet in another and clean 
pair, ready for him at the foot of the stairway. 
[Mem.— A good idea for the lords of creation of 
other nations.] The floors of the piazzas and rooms 
were of porcelain tiles. We were ushered into the 
salon de receptio7i ; one of the four upper rooms re- 
served for Mustapha's family. A low, cushioned 
divan ran the length of the room, and in front, scat- 
tered over the floor were carpets, rugs, and silken 
cushions. Madame Rayato rose gracefully to receive 
us, and gave us the Arab salutations. Then, we chose 
our seats as best suited us : I, on the divan near our 
host, my Italian companion on the carpet in front, and a 
charming little French madame whom we had encoun- 
tered on our travels (for the gentlemen were excluded), 
upon the cushion by our side ; Madame Rayato on the 
other side of her liege lord, with her group of three 
very pretty daughters ; while number four, a pretty 
child of about that number of years, nestled between 



Madame Rayato. 



227 



her father's knees, and alternately bestowed and re- 
ceived caresses from her handsome papa. Indeed, it 
seemed much like a Christian household in this re- 
spect ; a beautiful domestic picture. Mustapha's face 
radiated with pleasure, " as he floated down the calm 
current of domestic bliss." [This last remark is not 
in the journal. It is that of the author.] I intro- 
duce, not the madame, in my engraving of the 
" Moorish woman of the period," but a type of the 




Moorish Lady of the Period, 



well-dressed Moorish lady, dressed like her. She had 
decidedly Spanish features and complexion, as we 
thought ; we afterwards found that she was descended 



Q 2 



228 Dress and Jewels of Madame Rayato. 

from a very wealthy and noble Spanish family — i.e., a 
Moorish family once celebrated in Spain before the 
Moors were driven thence. Her hair was dazzling in 
its blackness. It was cut short at the neck, and covered 
with a silken foulard (handkerchief) whose embroidered 
and fringed ends hung jauntily upon one side in the 
form of a heavy tassel. A diamond sword fastened it 
on the forehead ; an agraffe, with pendants, ornamented 
the point at the tie ; and these were matched with ear- 
rings of pendant solitaires. She wore a crimson velvet 
basque, cut nearly in the Pompadour style, with lace 
chemisette, and confined at the waist by a girdle of 
the same, the girdle and basque embroidered in gold. 
Large, full muslin " pantalons," over those of a thicker 
material, completed the toilet of the madame. A 
dozen strings of pearls were around the neck, and 
several pairs of bracelets, in unique designs, of gold 
and diamonds, and massive gold anklets, were the 
ornaments of arms and feet. Of course, she had put 
on the additional number of jewels, to redeem the 
promise made to us, that she would display all her 
bijouterie. The diamonds were set in silver, so that 
we were able to bear their brilliancy without envy. 
Had the setting been gold, I would not speak for 
our integrity. Afterwards, jackets of gold cloth and 
" pantalons *' to match, were shown us, for fete occa- 
sions. The children were attired like the mother, only 
with less jewelry, and instead of the foulard head tie, 
they wore the little fancy Greek cap of gold coins, tied 
coquettishly at one side. 

' Salutations over, and jewelry examined, we ex- 
plained our different nationalities, we speaking in 
French and Mustapha Rayato translating into Arabic 
for his wife. We inquire if they have French masters 
for their children, since their country is becoming 
essentially French? "No. Our religion does not 



Her trenchant Expressions 07i Polygamy. 229 

allow instructions in any other than our own language." 
" Did you take your wife with you to the Paris Exposi- 
tion ? " " Oh, no ! Moorish ladies seldom travel." 
"They do not always stay at home, surely?" "No. 
We go to our country house for the summer," said 
Madame, " and we ladies go to the cemetery on 
Friday. Besides, we visit among each other." "But 
in the evening, in the city ? Do you not drive out as 
we do, to take the fresh air ? " " Oh, no. Never ! " 
" Why should they ? " says M. Rayato. " They have 
the court here, and the freedom of the house." "Your 
daughters marry so young— when do you expect to 
give up your pretty charge there ? " pointing to his 
oldest of fourteen, in size and precocity, already twenty ! 
" Oh, in two years most probably," at which the young 
lady coyly concealed her blushes behind her mamma. 
M. Rayato remarks that no dowry is needed on the 
part of the girl, but the would-be husband must bestow 
a certain sum. "You must be happy to know that 
you can add to that sum, however, for your daughter's 
comfort ? " " Oh, yes ! Allah be thanked ! the French 
have not taken my all." Our French "madame" 
appeared to enjoy all these diatribes against her nation 
as much as we did. 

' " But, M. Rayato, how is it ? You have but 
one wife?" Here Madame R., curious to know 
the question, opened her great black eyes half suspi- 
ciously, and said, on the instant the translation was 
given : " If he had another, I would strangle her ! " and, 
with equal quickness, turned on us, saying : " But why 
is it that Madame has but one husband ? " To this 
we could make but one reply, and that the one pre- 
viously given by her, in answer to our numerous other 
questions : " It is our law — it is our religion ! " Here 
a neat, bright-eyed mulatto girl, who proved to be our 
acquaintance of the night before at the religious riteSj 



230 Murder of a French Girl. 



appears, and brings in a low table or stool. She follows 
it with a silver salver, on which were china cups in 
silver filigree holders, filled with odorous coffee. 
Napkins of the length of a towel, with embroidered 
golden ends, were unfolded for each, and laid upon 
our laps ; then the sugared coffee, without cream or 
spoons, was passed, followed with blocks of fig paste, 
handed to us in spoons. Both were very good, and 
our hosts were kindly urgent that we should par- 
take again ; but glancing at the time, I found, to my 
horror, that we had but twenty minutes to reach the 
hotel, pack our trunks, and leave for Blidah ! I will 
not answer for our hasty adieu, or the impression left 
on our hosts by the hurried manner of our exit, but 
in a few words of thanks for their great kindness, and 
good wishes for the future of Mademoiselle the elder, 
we descended the stairway and literally rushed for 
hotel and railroad.' Thus endeth the journal. 

From this chance conversation thus reported, one 
may perceive what does not appear on the surface, that 
there is a good deal of inflammable material in Algiers 
growing out of French domination and these hetero- 
geneous elements of society. A spark may make a tre- 
mendous explosion some day, even in the midst of 
Algiers. Let me illustrate. Last year a beautiful French 
girl, a child of eight, Rabel her name, and daughter of 
an engineer on the railroad, was found with her throat 
cut and evidences of attempted outrage, lying upon 
the basin or quay under the Rue Imperatrice, leading 
to the railway. The child had been sent at seven in 
the evening with an umbrella to the depot for her 
father. It was raining. Having missed her father and 
returning alone, she was thus assassinated, after an 
ineffectual attempt at rape. The indignation was wild. 
It was accounted the beginning of a plot among the 
indigenes to murder the children of the Europeans. 



I 



Discovery of the Moslem Murderer, 23 1 

Algiers was on fire for a month. At length, after the 
police had in vain endeavoured to find out the villain, 
a Mohammedan, who had been educated in the 
French Moslem school, denounced his brother-in-law, 
one Ahmed ben Mustapha, called Sordo, an irreclaim- 
able scoundrel. He had returned to his home, the 
evening of the murder, with the umbrella, and bloody. 
He had been seen to burn the umbrella and throw the 
debris into a cistern. There it was found, with two 
buttons of the child's dress. His sister saw them, and 
telling her husband, the conscience of the latter com- 
pelled him to make known the guilty one. Sordo was 
tried. I have read the pamphlet of his trial. It was 
before a jury, and after the French method. The 
Judge questioned the accused, and so implicated him 
in the toils of his own prevarications, that he was at 
once convicted. He suffered death. The reputation of 
the indigenes was not only saved, but it grew in favour, 
because of the conduct of the brother-in-law. 

France does all she can to mitigate the prevailing 
prejudices ; but more in a social than in a political 
and economical way. A story is told that, shortly 
after the French took Algiers city, the general in com- 
mand gave a great ball and invited all the native 
inhabitants. Ices and wines were passed around. 
Directly dishes, cups, and glasses became scarce ; and 
it was found that the natives, not familiar with the 
customs of the French, had ' put away ' those articles 
under their sashes and clothes. Explanations followed, 
and the articles appeared! 

The French appear to sneer at the Arab ; but they 
are, nevertheless, utilizing the native elements here, as 
best they may. I have seen Arab women, under the 
direction of a zouave, breaking stones for the road. I 
have seen the Morocco people in this province of 
Oran, pumping water and making mortar for the 



232 David's Sling. 



bridges. I have seen as many native soldiers as French. 
I have seen the Arab tending sheep for the French 
colonist — those large black-faced Southdowns, were 
they not? At any rate, they are heavy with mutton 
chops, and rich with a golden fleece. " I have seen the 
railroad track for many, many miles, lined with native 
workmen. An Arab does the work among the horses 
of the diligence. We see him as we ride along the 
road for leagues toiling amidst the wheat and barley 
all but ripe, or standing sentinel against the birds ! As 
this is novel to us, may I picture it? Indeed, I have 
it engraved. At first I could not understand why some 
half-dozen turbaned individuals were standing like 
statues of ancient Romans, and all at once began hal- 
looing at each other across fields of wheat. Then we 
saw them with slings, swinging them with rare handi- 
craft, round their heads, till — crack ! and off went the 
stone a half mile into a flock of hungry birds who 
were in the wheat. The birds, affrighted, rise. The 
Arab sounds his warning to his fellows — and, crack ! 
another sling from another quarter ! Thus they attend 
their fields, and in spite of the Koran, take a sling ! I 
understand now how young David became such a pro- 
ficient, and why the giant of Gath fell — beneath a sling. 
David, we learn, attended flocks ; and no doubt was 
employed to frighten crows from the corn. David, like 
Samuel, when young was a good boy ! He degenerated. 
There is something so oriental, biblical, and inter- 
esting in this sleight of the sling, that I requested the 
performer to perform on my account, rather than on 
the bird business. He complied. I endeavour, in the 
absence of a library, to recall the history of this 
pecuhar weapon of war, and, as I perceive, of industry. 
But having no Hbrary — only my Bible — I must be 
content with researches therein. It is a favourite 
weapon of the Syrian shepherds; was adopted by the 




^R 



AB3 SLINGING AT BIRDS. 



I 



Unwise War upon small Birds. 233 

fighting Jews ; and, judging by its quality, it belongs 
to the light brigade. I learn from ' Judges * and 
' Chronicles,' that the tribe of Benjamin, like my Arab 
friends, were experts in its use ; and from ' Kings,' that 
it was used in attacking and defending towns, and in 
light skirmishing— as in this delicate warfare on the 
birds. From ' Maccabees,' I have the apocryphal 
account of its use by the Syrians, with some refine- 
ment in its manufacture. The simple sling, which I 
made when a boy, is the same which these Arabs have, 
viz., two strings to a leathern receptacle for the stone 
in the centre, termed the pan, or caph. At least 
Samuel the prophet says so ; and Samuel ought to 
know. According to that good son of Hannah — • 
whose name I have the honour to bear— the sling 
stones (i Samuel xvii. 40) were selected for their 
smoothness. A bag was carried round the neck, as a 
sort of shot-pouch, or the pebbles were heaped up at 
the feet of the shnger. We know what sort of a stone 
David took for Goliath, and how it hurt. The old 
rude sculptures of Egypt show some of these slingers 
at their art ; but I never understood how neatly they 
could be aimedj and how swiftly shot, until these Arabs 
taught us. Their skill rivals the classic fame of the 
dwellers in the Balearic isles. 

Our ride from Milianah to Orleansville, runs 
through a valley, very wide and perfectly cultivated. 
The birds were busy at the grain and the Arabs at the 
birds, in England, some years ago, the farmers were 
in a rage at the little winged thieves, for destroying 
their crops, and commenced to destroy them. They 
soon found out their mistake. The birds were really 
conservative. The Algerines are on the same track. 
They are after the birds now ; but when the worm 
comes, they will call for the birds. What a lesson 
here for — political and social sages ! 



234 Extension of African Railways. 

There is nothing more beautiful than fields of grain 
waving in the zephyrs, and just transmuting or trans- 
muted into gold. There are vast areas of grain here, 
and where grain is not upon our Western route, the 
Abyssinian jasmine^ the white fiox, the flaring red 
poppy, the yellow, prickly broom, and opulent mari- 
gold, fill the meadows. On all the route to Orleans- 
ville, and thence to Relizane — where the railroad 
begins to run west to Orah — we perceive why Africa 
is so fragrant and efflorescentj why her sands are 
' golden ' in another and better sense than those of 
Australia^ and why her fields are beautiful with 
bountiful harvests. We see, too, every few miles, 
that the capital and enterprise of France is making 
a railroad track along and parallel with this coast. 
Every few mileSj already erected and waiting, are 
good substantial stone houses for the railway oflicers, 
the only houses to be seen out of the little villages, 
not counting the Arab huts and tents as such. 
These railroad edifices are the nuclei of towns here- 
after to be called into existence. The land around 
them is offered at about six dollars per acre ; and the 
wonder is that so few seem attracted to these alluvial 
plains. Labour is plenty. The Arab will work. I 
have already told how I have seen him at it. Not- 
withstanding he is so berated by the French, he is used 
and useful. Our driver could not speak ill enough of 
him. I confess that, compared with the Kabyles, the 
Arabs are not so industrious, but I find them much 
better than they are painted. Our driver talked of them 
as Western people in American territories talk of the 
Indians. They are vermin, robbers, murderers, useless 
cumberers of the earth, only fit to be exterminated. 
But one must make allowances. The Arab has lost 
his pasturage. His tenure of land, for his flocks, 
never very strong, has been rendered very uncertain. 



A Lion^htmief from Gascony. 235 

He wanders very much how-^ still nomadic in his wits 
and about his fortune* He is in perpetual unrest as to 
his right of property. He may be lazy and may think 
that ' property is robbery,' and try, on this principle, 
to increase his store. He may grow tired of his 
nomadic flock breeding, 

-fold his tent, like an Arab, 

And quietly steal away.' 

Our driver approves of that verse in its most literal 
significance. He thinks the poet has travelled through 
Algiers. But I rather distrust that driver. He told 
me sorne monstrous stories yesterday about lions and 
tigers here. Perhaps he took me for a credulous 
Cockney. He did not frighten me ; no, sir. I have 
seen only one jackal, and that in the Gorge of Chiffa ; 
one porcupine, and one scorpion. Not a lion have I 
met ' in the way.' One leopard I saw at Fort Napoleon, 
but he was dead and skinned. In fact, it was the skin 
I saw. I had read Gerard, and how he killed one 
hundred and thirty lions here, and kept after them till 
he found honourable sepulture in the belly of the royal 
beast. I have read of a native lion-killer, Mustafa 
Somebody, who always killed his lions when they were 
gorged and dormant. He was a mighty hunter. That 
would be my style with a lion. But I was not prepared 
to hear our driver say, that along this route, not long 
since, while driving the diligence in the night, he saw 
what he thought was a cart and two lanterns before 
him, at which his horses refused to go on. He got 
out, went ahead; found two enormous lions in the 
road. Their eyes were the lanterns. He struck them 
with his whip, when they sneaked off! I asked the 
driver, gently, ' if he were native to Algiers ? ' ' No, 
Monsieur.' ' Are you then from France ? ' ' Oh ! 
oui. Monsieur.' 'From Gascony?' His exploit was 
accounted for — he was from Gas — con — y ! 



236 Bounties for the Scalps of Wild Beasts. 

But it is not long since lions did ravage these parts. 
The very cactus hedges and fortified farms show that 
protection from them to flocks and people was sought 
for. Laws were made to help in eradicating the royal 
beast. Bounties are yet paid for his death. Near 
the Morocco line, lions and hyenas, panthers and 
jackals are common. The Government pays eight 
dollars for a lion or panther scalp ; for a young lion, 
or young panther, three dollars ; for a hyena, one 
dollar, and for a young hyena or jackal, about thirty 
cents. There are adventurous Arabs who make the 
hyena business quite lucrative. I have seen no return 
of the bounties paid since 1863, when there were 1578 
animals paid for. There is no better sign than this in 
a new country. I can remember, and I am not old, 
when Ohio paid bounties for wolf scalps. But we 
have seen no wild beasts here of any account. We 
have breakfasted on wild boar, and have seen the 
little wild piggies, all brown and striped, and very 
pretty for hogs. They are easily tamed, and (like the 
Arab here and there) are found following the French 
about like a pet dog. 

When Southern Algiers was fairly opening fifteen 
years ago, and the French soldiers were working 
their way to the inland, where the wild beasts did most 
abound, I remember to have seen in the Paris ' Chari- 
varV some funny caricatures of the experiences of the 
green French conscript. One retains its place in my 
memory. It was that of the unsophisticated young 
soldier just arrived, who, seeing a lion asleep, ran up, 
and in a glee of satisfaction caught him by the scrufF 
of the neck, and called out to his companion with 
great delight that he had him ! I do not remember 
what was the result. 

In these letters I have said little about Roman 
or other remains, preferring to photograph the living 



The Tomb of the Christian, 



^37 



present. But there is much of interest to the archaeo- 
logist in Algiers. The museums of Spain, France, 
and Great Britain are full of Roman coins, arms, 
tombs and monuments. But in no part of the world 
out of Italy, are there such attractive evidences 
of the great power of the ancient world as here. 
Carthage leaves its impress both here and upon the 
opposite coast ; but Rome outlives and outshines all 
nationalities, in her aqueducts, roads, amphitheatres, 
temples, and cities. Cherchell, shaken by an earth- 
quake, is still visible under the waves of the sea, whose 
salt preserves the town, as ashes preserved Pompeii, 
and rock preserves Herculaneum. But there is one 
monument in Algiers, which not to see or mention 
would be like going to Egypt and forgetting the 




Tomb of the Christian. 

pyramids. I may be excused for presenting an en- 
graving of it. It is called the 'Tomb of the Chris- 



238 Dr. McCarthy on the Tomb of the Christian. 

tian.' We have seen it from several points : on our 
trip along the sea to the Trappists ; and to the Gorge 
of ChifFa ; upon our visit to Blidah, and afterwards on 
the way to Milianah. It is upon one of the lofty 
mountain points, and cuts the sky so clear and clean 
that it is ever beckoning your vision from distant 
points. It is said by some to be the sepulchre of the 
Mauritanian kings ; by others, to have been erected in 
memory of a Vandal princess, who was converted to 
Catholicism. Hence its name. It is 136 feet high. 
Its base is polygonal, and is 195 feet in diameter. 
Ionic columns support the tomb, which rises in circular 
steps, in the form of a truncated cone. Various are 
the stories told of this monument ; several romances 
are woven about it, but they are all reduced to this, 
by some scientific and learned researches : In the year 
22 before Christ it was erected by Juba II., King of 
this region. He had been brought up in Rome, had 
visited Greece, and had travelled to Egypt. Hence 
the base of the monument is Ionic, and the dome 
like that of Egypt. It was erected in honour of his 
wife, who was an Egyptian, and brought her religion 
with her to this land. These revelations are the result 
of the researches of Dr. McCarthy, an Irish savant 
employed here by the Emperor for tracing and veri- 
fying Caesar's campaigns in Africa. But whoever 
made this tomb, and for what purpose soever — 
aiFection, vanity, or ambition — it is the pervading 
presence of Algiers. It seems to follow you. It is 
the genius of the country. It is like St. Peter's to 
Rome, and Vesuvius to Naples. You cannot think of 
Algiers, without recalling the vision of the Tomb of 
the Christian. 

There is another tomb in the province of Con- 
stantine very similar to it. It is no doubt a burial 
monument of the Mauritanian kings. It is called the 



The Tombeatt Madi^essen. 239 



Tombeaic Madressen, When I presented it to the 
artist who has undertaken to illustrate this volume, 
Mr. Simpson, he at once recognized old friends in 
these monuments. He had never been in Algiers, 
but being skilled in such subjects, from his re- 
searches as the artist of the ' Illustrated London 
News,' in India, in the Crimea, in the Abyssinian 
war, and the East generally, he made me a note 
bearing on the matter. In it he writes that the 
Tomb of the Christian, and the Tombeau Madressen 
are so unlike any other architectural remains in the 
western parts of the Old World, that they have 
given considerable trouble to archaeologists to ex- 
plain them. Their identity with the Buddhist Topes, 
or Dagopas of ancient India, Ceylon, and similar 
erections of the present day in Ladak, Thibet, and 
other parts of the Himalayas, makes their explanation 
still more difficult. These Buddhist buildings may 
be described as ' round pyramids,' and this description 
exactly describes the tombs of Algeria. Drawings of 
these Buddhist Topes were in Mr. Simpson's Exhibi- 
tion of Indian Drawings in London. The Buddhist 
Topes were tombs and temples combined. 

1 was surprised at the appearance of Orleansville. 
Although it had but a thousand people, nearly all 
were European. The hotel was Parisian. The country 
about it is hot, and the land denuded of trees. 
The water is not drinkable, but it serves to irrigate 
very well the plants within the walls. The River 
Chelif runs by the town. Its valley bursts through 
the mountains here towards the sea. Our Kabyle 
friends live in the mountains on the north. Many a 
good fight they have waged with the French here- 
abouts. The place is the old Castle Tingitii of the 
Romans. It has had much to do with the French 
and native wars. It is thoroughly defended by a wall 



240 Abracadabra for Sancta Ec{c)lesia. 

and a fosse. It is like all the Algerine towns. They 
resemble, with the walls, towers, and gates, more a city 
of the Middle Ages than one of the ninteenth century. 
In 1843, when Marshal Bageaud was rebuilding the 
town of Orleansville, the ancient basilica of St. Re- 
paratus was discovered. This Christian church was 
built here under Roman rule in the third century. It 
has some rude mosaics, red, black, and white, and is 
ornamented with five inscriptions, of which two form 
a species of abracadabra. One of these is upon the 
words, ' Sancta Ecclesia^ spelt Eclesia (with one c). 
It is a square, covered with letters. The letter S 
occupies the intersection of the two diagonals, or the 
centre of the seventh line. Starting from thence, you 
may read in every direction — ' Sancta Eclesia '—re- 
peated a great number of times. Here it is — 



A 


I 


s 


E 


L 


C 


E 


C 


L 


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S 


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A 


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c 


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s 


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S 


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p: 


A 


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We found the most delightful accommodations at 
Orleansville ; and took our dinner, as Plato advised 
his ideal republicans to dine, with sweet music — harp, 
violin, flute, and voice ! At this feast every dish was 
at hand. The spirits of the old Roman epicures, who 
once visited the baths and waters of Algiers, seemed to 
have managed this menu for us. Among the dishes 




CQ 
Pi 



The picturesque Arab Tejit disenchanted. 241 

was the kotiskousoit^ made of flour stirred up with sour 
milk, and garnished with beans. This is the national 
dish. It was tolerably good. Hunger made it seem 
so, at least. 

But I have no complaint to make of the French 
cuisine. We have been nowhere yet that we could 
not get three or four good meals a day. While in 
England — at any English village inn, or even in the 
cities — you have only the mutton . chop or beefsteak, 
either overdone and charred or underdone and raw ; 
in France and its dependencies you can always have 
something— ragouts, soups, and meats, fruits, salads, 
and dessert — fresh, fine, and savoury. The native 
wine of this country, especially at Milianah, is good. 
It is like a light sherry, stiffly alcoholic, but very 
palatable. It smacks of the sun; it will bear improve- 
ment in the making. Unlike the full-bodied wines of 
Corsica, or the unfortified port of southern Spain, it 
is the very wine to make a breakfast, a lunch, or a 
dinner sparkle ! The white wines of Algiers have a 
fine future, and great efforts are miaking for their 
perfection. 

Nine more hours of carriage-riding from Orleans- 
ville, and we are at the railroad terminus. We 
changed our horses at a fortified auberge, half way. 
While waiting for the change we visited some Arab 
tents. I said that they were not enchanting. In fact, 
we were disenchanted by too close an observation. 
The tent fabric is much smoked. It may look better 
in the engraving. It is like a filthy old rag carpet, 
awkwardly stretched on poles. The entrance is very 
low — so is the tent. The women were present, and 
invited us to enter. There were four tents enclosed 
by a sort of fence of dried wild joujouba. a thorny 
bush common here on the mioors. Inside of this 
fence were some goats, and sheep, and one donkey. 

R 



242 " The crackling of thorns under a potr 

The latter was chasing the kids and lambs with the 
playful jocoseness of a kitten. There were three 
women — all wives — of different ages ; one like a child. 
They were ornamented with immense steel necklaces 
and ear-rings, having little red coral charms pendent. 
On their foreheads were similar decorations — very 
coarse, and not unlike those of our squaws. The 
tent curtain was so low that we had almost to go 
on our knees to .enter. We saw some matting, 
rolled up now, but reserved for night service. It was 
their bed. Two kids, tied together, occupied the 
centre of the tent. A woman was milking a goat. 
Charcoal embers were alive under an iron pot in one 
corner, and scattered around was an immense amount 
of rubbish. This was the tent whose romantic beauty 
fills the fancy of the Occident. One of the wives held 
upon her back her baby, its feet somehow supported 
in a belt at the back. The little one had to hang on 
to the mother while the mother milked the goat. I 
do not yet understand how that baby held on to that 
mother. The women seemed very proud of their 
ornaments. One of them who had the double ear- 
rings, at top and bottom of the ear, six inches round, 
was eager to take oiF her handkerchief and head-gear, 
and display her distorted ears and tawdry decorations. 
They have little use for fire, as they live on goats' 
milk. What cooking they do is done either with 
charcoal or the joujouba thorn-bush. By the way, as 
there were no hawthorns or wild briars in Syria, and as 
this thorny joujouba is native there, it must have been 
this to which the Psalmist referred, when he spoke of 
the laughter of a certain class being ' like the crackling 
of thorns under a pot.' David had been a nomad ! 
He had, while watching his sheep, cooked an im- 
provised mutton chop, over the crackling of the 
joujouba. 



I 



Oran described. 243 



We are soon in the cars and on the way to Oran. 
The track is hned with the castor oil plant. The 
plains are very level. As we leave for Spain to-night, 
we watch for the sea. We hope it is not covered with 
white caps. Alas ! before we reach it we see the wind- 
mills about Oran swinging their long arms madly. 
We pass into Oran — past a fine cemetery full of dead 
Mohammedans and live cypresses. 

The mountains about Oran are whitish with 
limestone, and seem almost chalky. The fields are 
decked to the last in colours. The city is splendidly 
fortified by Santa Cruz and Santa Gregory. Its 
rocky mountains are topped with castles, the scenes 
of many a fight between Spain and Algiers. The 
anchorage is fine. The jetty is made, like that at 
Marseilles, of artificial stone. Oran has 23,000 people 
— all busy. The Spaniards are most noticeable. 
Their black velvet hats everywhere appear. Some 
3000 have emigrated hither within a few months, 
owing to the home taxes and the doubts they have 
of a stable government at home. In 1509, Cardinal 
Ximenes himself led the fight here against the Mo- 
hammedans. He conquered Oran. Hither the dis- 
graced Spanish nobles used to be exiled ; and they 
had a saturnalia while here. Oran was called a little 
court. It was so lively when the Spaniards used it 
for a prison or exile, that it was sought for by those in 
search of enjoyment. Since the French have had it, 
it has been very gay. The population appear on the 
dash. Business is brisk. An earthquake now and 
then does something. Oran is an Algerian Chicago — in 
little. We see, as it were in a picture, military people 
of every uniform and grade, from the chasseur with 
his blue cap and red pants to the spahis with their red, 
flowing robes. Here are the Jews in sombre black and 
Jewesses in damask, gold, or silk ; the Spaniards, from 

R 2 



244 T^^^ Hotel d Orient at Algiers recommended. 

the huertas of Andalusia, with their light shawls grace- 
fully folded over their shoulders and a semi-turban 
about their heads betraying the Moorish vicinage ; 
and finally, amidst a tableau of outside natives — on 
donkeys and off, moving, noisy, and curious to look 
at — we find the Moors themselves, careless, easy, fasti- 
dious, stoical, and any other adjective to show how 
utterly indifferent they seem to the active European 
life around them. The whole makes up a picture 
quite equal to that at Malta or Algiers. It would 
require a Dutch artist of the old school to depict its 
variety and detail. 

Thus endeth my description of Algiers and the 
strange vicissitudes and contrasts which make up its 
life, scenery, history, and people. I cannot close 
without remarking upon the courtesy everywhere 
extended to us by French and native, by officials and 
peoples, by Kabyle and Arab. Especially would I 
remember the honest, faithful, and accomplished 
master of the Hotel d'Orient at Algiers. Not because 
he sent after me, through the country, to return 
some money I had deposited, and which I had for- 
gotten to draw ; although that was very handsome 
and indispensable. But his hotel is a model. If I 
were to build one, I would send an architect to Algiers 
to study its conveniences and proportions. It rises up 
before me, like a dream of the Orient. Its court, so 
airy and sweet with flowers ; and its figures of Mah- 
moud the Great, Schamyl of Circassia, and Abd-el- 
Kader— wrought in stone, within the enclosure — 
these, if we had no other souvenirs, would preserve 
Algiers in the amber of our memory. 

Let not the traveller who crosses the ocean and 
desires to see Oriental life rush off to Syria or Egypt 
before he tries Algiers. It is at the door of France. 
Fifty hours from Marseilles in good weather will bring 



Departure for Spain, ^lA^^ 

him to Algiers, and less than half that will take him 
from Malaga or Carthagena to Oran. I would advise 
him not to go in winter. Some friends who were in 
Algiers in February were nearly four weeks weather- 
bound. The sea is uncertain. If you put out, 
you may have to go back or run for refuge into 
another port. So at Corsica in winter. But in April 
there is no such risk. Take little or no baggage with 
you. Be prepared, if you can, to go in a company of 
four or five, to make up a carriage-load, and thus save 
expense and the too rigorous travel of a diligence. 
Besides, in these countries of the sun, the diligence runs 
generally at night ; and you miss so much. Arm your- 
self with plenty of flea powder ! Do not be afraid of 
being under an umbrella ! The sun is very perpendi- 
cular and warm in its attentions. The turban has 
an object. If you lunch out of doors (as we did 
often) and upon the ground — find out first if the 
ground has a good or a bad reputation for — scor- 
pions ; and if you can secure a companion — as accom- 
plished as Dr. Bennet in the sciences, botanical and 
otherwise, and as social in the amenities of life — do so. 
But you will have to look long and far to find him. 

We depart in the vessel for Spain at 4 o'clock. We 
are to see the smoke of the silver and lead mines of 
Carthagena at breakfast to-morrow. The little steamer 
rides very lightly on the waves within the mole at 
Oran. We have inspected her. The sea looks squally. 
What will the vessel do in the open sea? We are 
attended, and so is our baggage, to the boat by an 
indigent indigene — Mahmoud, not Hahmoud. We 
were compelled to leave the latter at Algiers. Hah- 
moud wears a French sack-coat and Turkish baggy 
breeches. He is the incarnation of the conflict 
between the two civihzations. His coat is of the 
Occident, and it looks bright and new. His breeches 



246 Hispania rediviva. 

are of the Orient, and are seedy, patched, and ready 
for the rag-basket, the paper-mill, or as manure for 
the olive ! Thus passeth away the glory of the Deys, 
the Pirates, the Moors, and the Arabs before France ! 
Adieu to the African Orient! Hail to Spain! old 
Spain no more, but Hispania rediviva^ under the 
revolution ! 



247 




CHAPTER XIV. 

SPAIN— VEGETABLE SURPRISES AND DISAP- 
POINTMENTS. 

' Once more — once more ! in dust and gore to ruin must thou reel ! 
In vain — in vain thou tearest the sand wath furious heel — 
In vain — in vain, thou noble beast ! I see, I see thee stagger. 
Now keen and cold thy neck must hold the stern Alcayde's dagger ! ' 

Lockhart's ' Spanish Ballads.' 

E Steamed from Oran^ in Algiers, into the port 
of Carthagena through a heavy sea. The 
Spanish coast might as well have been in 
the moon, for it was utterly bleak, wood- 
less, and leafless. Dry, white limestone mountains, 
like those we left at Oran, stand along the coast, and 
make it so forbidding that we wonder the Cartha- 
ginians ever thought it so inviting, or that for its 
conquest the Romans under Scipio waged such ter- 
rific wars. 

The port presents a narrow gateway between the lofty 
rocks on either side, which are impregnably fortified. 
As we go between them, an officer boards our vessel, 
and we sway on the waves while we pass through his 
ordeal. He examines us for our health. As we steam 
up the bay, we perceive before us the great old fort 
built by the Carthaginians. It was captured by Scipio 
Africanus, 210 b.c. At that time, Carthagena, or New 
Carthage, was one of the richest cities of the world. 
Not for its glass, cordage, and fisheries — which now 
furnish employment to most of the population — but 
for its silver and lead mines, from which, as we sail 



248 Reworking of Silver Mines. 

up the bay, the smoke streams. It comes from pipes 
or chimneys, out of the bare mountains, under which 
these old and long tenantless mines are reworked. The 
Romans used the ancestors of the proud Hidalgos as 
slaves in the mines, and sent their convicts hither. 
Owing to Gothic destruction and the decay of Euro- 
pean silver mining, incident to the discovery of the 
richer Americas in the fifteenth century, these mines 
lay dormant until 1839. Then joint-stock companies 
began to work them, and to be enriched by the ex- 
periment. I was told by the French Consul, who 
was on our steamer, that fabulous sums are made out 
of these mines. The mining has given rise to a con- 
siderable commerce with England. Three hundred 
colher ships come here every year with coal to be used 
in the explorations. 

When we landed, we found a crowd ready to re- 
ceive us. They fought for the honour and the price 
of taking our baggage to the hotel. The solitary 
hotel— and that very poor — received us after many 
hours of travail, on being delivered from the custom- 
house. Ours was a French steamer, but we found that 
the new Spanish Government had relieved it and all 
other foreign craft of port dues and other restrictions. 
We did not wait long for our permit. But the time 
is not lost. We make observations. The people 
look odd and picturesque. Every one has a touch 
of the Moor: not the turban, but a coloured hand- 
kerchief in its stead tied about their head ; not the 
burnous, but the mantle, cross-barred, like Scotch 
plaid, or red and flaming, and always worn with grace ; 
their feet, not entirely shoeless, but a sort of Arab 
sandal, made with hemp, and tied with strings over the 
bare feet, generally all the toes out of doors but the 
big one! The pretentious sash is inevitable, but 
how can I describe that peculiar, black, rusty velvet 



Vandalism destroying a Carthaginian Fort. 249 

hat? You may, to see it with your mind, imagine a 
round platter, turned up three inches or more on the 
rim, and upon it a conical-shaped bowl, turned upside 
down ! If this description is imperfect, some of my 
illustrations will suffice. We perceive, occasionally, a 
dark rosette upon the hat. We notice, also, that we 
are in the land of the crazy Don Quixote ; for wind- 
mills decorate all the breezy eminences. It begins to 
rain. No sunbeams here. The streets are full of 
people, and not of the best class. Beggars abound. 
Walls shut in the city. We learn that the gates are 
locked at night. The town is on a plain, surrounded 
by sierras. This plain is in process of rescue from a 
marsh, which used to breed malaria. Livy records that 
there was, in his day, round a part of these walls, a 
lake which had been there when Scipio took the city. 
This, doubtless, once covered the present marsh land. 

Strange to say, in one of the churches into which 
we ventured, the modern Carthagenians were preparing 
to celebrate the deeds of those gallant Spaniards who 
fell in the recent war with Peru ! Thus patriotic and 
high-spirited, yet they are actually demolishing the 
magnificent Carthaginian fort upon the mountain 
above the town — the most commanding object of 
interest around or in the city. It is already half torn 
down to make houses withal ! All the world cried out 
when, years ago, Mehemet Ali talked of using the 
Pyramids for building purposes ; but here, in this cen- 
tury, the most prominent monument of Carthaginian 
power and commercial affluence, and of Roman 
prowess and civilized sway, is already half destroyed. 
What are Rome and Carthage to these degenerate 
sons of the proud discoverers and conquerors of the 
New World ? I will not be too hasty about answering 
this question. 

We go out of Carthagena on a railroad ; we wait at 



250 



hsert tn Spain. 



the depot two hours before the train is ready. Here 
the beggars congregate, and, indeed, all other classes 
of the inhabitants. The baths of Caracalla were not 
more the resort of Roman quidnuncs than is the depot 
for the Carthagenians ! We at length leave the city. 
We are in the country. We look about for the 
promised Paradise. The gardens of Spain are here ! 
So we have somehow heard. We look in vain. Are 
we in the moon ? Is this a land of ashes and scoriae 
of extinct volcanoes ? Where are the orange groves, 
the vines, the pomegranates ? Have w^e become in- 
verted ? This is Africa, with her proverbial aridity ; 
and what seemed Africa to us, with her glorious 
luxuriance of growth, was Spain ! Well, both the 
Doctor and myself were puzzled. We expected to find 
arid, white, yellow, bare deserts in Algiers ; but they 
are here! Not deserts of sand, but deserts of rock, 
limie, or clay, dazzling to the eye and relieved by no 
green. It is as if all this country for thirty miles, with 
a few exceptional spots — oases in a desert of dry, baked 
lime or clay — ^v^^as an extensive, old, used-up brick- 
yard ! Yet, still stranger, the vast area between the 
bleak mountains is ploughed ground. It is ploughed 
and planted. What does this signify ? Are the peasants 
waiting for crops from the sterile soil ? They will wait 
in vain. It is May, and the harvest-time is nearly 
here. Are they yet to sow other seed ? Surely not ; 
for the blister of summer will soon be on the breast 
of the earth. By no drawing, squeezing or sucking, 
can milk be pressed or stripped from these dry 
earthly udders. What does it mean ? The Doctor 
suggests that he has read that rice is here raised. Very 
well ; but I suggest that there is no provision here for 
water, and that rice requires water ! Then we are 
silent — more and more puzzled. We ask some people 
in the cars. They do not know. Here is an immense 



A Riddle and its Sohttion. i^i 

country, geometrically divided into lots, and subdivided 
into smaller lots, all as if worked industriously and as 
if for a good crop, and not a petal of flower, leaf of 
clover, spear of wheat, or any other green and growing 
thing, between that dry white soil and the bright, 
blue, blazing sky ! We look for the horizon and 
its verdant woods ; nothing there but volcanic rocks 
and ashes. We look at our feet for something of 
vegetable life ; not a blade is drawn in defence of the 
' garden of Europe ' ! Not until we reached Murcia 
did we solve our sphinx riddle. Our CEdipus was an 
old peasant, who told us that every year they ploughed 
and planted this whole plain, from Carthagena to 
Murcia ; ploughed it all carefully and planted it 
religiously with grain of all kinds ; hoping against 
hope, that a few days of rain might — possibly would — 
come to gladden their hearts and gratify their labour ; 
that every once in a while, say in three or four years, 
there was rain enough to make something shoot besides 
soldiers ; and a little to them was so much. They 
laboured and waited for the possibilities of results. 
Farmers of Pennsylvania and Kansas, or of rock-ribbed 
New England ! What a commentary is here ! Never, 
never repine against your ' most blessed condition.' 
The wonder of this peculiar land grows on me, as I 
move on toward Murcia. 

I was not more surprised at certain phases of 
African life and scenery than I am at the appearance 
of this portion of Spain. Whether I have been so 
ignorant, or whether the writers on Spain have skipped 
these parts, or, having seen them, set them down as 
uninteresting — whatever is the reason, I was utterly 
unprepared for what I have observed. Indeed, if 
Buckle could arise and see what is going on in Spain, 
in a social and political way, he would rewrite a large 
part of his second volume, even as I have had 



252 Health Stations in Spain, 

to unlearn and then relearn much about Spain. 
I refer to the Provinces of Murcia and Valencia, 
or rather to the country from Carthagena, through 
Murcia and Alicante to Valencia, on the eastern 
shore of the peninsula, and looking forth towards 
the Balearic Islands. We have gone through these 
regions nearly the whole route by carriage. The 
latter here is very little slower than the rail, and much 
better as a point of observation. We come hither 
fresh from Algiers. We come to the old land of the 
Moors from the new land of the Moors ; and, although 
three and a half centuries have elapsed since the 
Spaniards drove the Moors hence, time has not erased 
the eminent marks of Moorish manners and civiliza- 
tion. If this be the case here, what shall we not find 
in Andalusia ? 

Still travelHng with my former companion, Dr. 
Henry Bennet, I have had my eye and mind directed 
to the soil and its productions, as well for themselves 
as for the proof they give of the climate most fit for 
human health. We have continued our search for 
'winter sunbeams' into the month of May and into 
the land of Spain. The great desideratum which 
the Doctor seeks is a winter station for consumptive 
patients, or others affected with pulmonary and throat 
troubles. He would, if possible, find something better 
than the Riviera. These cities of Spain are favourites 
with many medical men and invalids ; and we visit 
them to understand why. The great object of our 
trip is to know — as Milton wrote it, in ' Paradise Lost ' 
— where we can find a Paradise regained, far from the 
harsh regions of the North — 

'■ By what means to shun 
The inclement seasons, rain, ice, hail, and snow ;' 

and at the same titne that we ascertain the facts, profit 



Spain and Africa contrasted, 253 

by the experience in our own bodies — enjoy in this 
purer dime, and in this chivalric land, the dehghts of 
external beauty and historic memories. 

Coming to Southern Spain, one may be sure, even 
in winter, to find Apollo with a quiver full of silver 
arrows, shooting them from a clear blue sky at our 
mother earth. The air is dry and light. The sea of 
this coast is so calm that the sailors say, it is for 
women to navigate. The rain, if it comes at all, 
comes at long intervals ; but the hot mountains and 
the demands of vegetation m.ake water so scarce 
and valuable that it seems hidden, like precious jewels, 
from ordinary eyes. 

I have said that, instead of Africa in Algiers, we 
found imaginary Africa here ; and instead of Eden in 
Spain, we found it in Africa, and that this was a 
mystery. In reading Washington Irving over again 
I see that the same thoughts impressed him. I am, 
therefore, in good company, if I have been ignorant. 
In his journey to Grenada, he says : ' Many are apt to 
picture Spain to their imaginations as a soft Southern 
region, decked out with all the luxuriant charms of 
voluptuous Italy. On the contrary, though there are 
exceptions in some of the maritime provinces, yet for 
the greater part it is a stern, melancholy country, with 
rugged mountains and long sweeping plains, destitute 
of trees, and indescribably silent and lonesome, par- 
taking of the savage and solitary character of 
Africa ! ' Had Irving visited Algiers where we have 
been — at least before the army of desert locusts came 
to devastate its luxuriant fields — he would not have 
spoken of Africa, except as I have, in bold contrast 
to the melancholy destitution of Spain. He speaks of 
the absence of singing birds in Spain as a consequence 
of the want of groves and hedges ; but Algiers is full 
of songsters, because so full of shrubs and trees. He 



1254 The City of Orihuela. 

sees the vulture and eagle wheeling around the cliiFs 
of Spain ; we saw these birds of prey only near the 
desert. He sees in Spain, in lieu of the softer charms 
of ornamental cultivation, a noble severity of scenery, 
which makes the boundless wastes as solemn as the 
ocean. All this and more we saw in the provinces of 
Murcia and Valencia — as Washington Irving saw 
them in Andalusia. But we remembered as we rode 
that irrigation had made the waste places blossom as 
the rose, and we waited for the vision ! 

As we go up towards Murcia, and rise into or upon 
the plateau (all Spain is a plateau, ridged with sierras) 
two or three thousand feet above the level of the sea, 
we begin to perceive a palm or so, and find a fig or 
so, until all at once the City of Orihuela appears. It 
is surrounded by rocks and mountains ; but there is a 
river near. It looks Oriental — Moorish. There are 
20,000 people here, and their plain laps up the River 
Segura like a wild, thirsty animal. The dwellings are 
low, and all marked with a cross, though of Moorish 
style ; but the Gothic cathedral towers above all. 
Here we find what water is. It makes the pome^ 
granate blush and it ripens the fig. The olive grows 
darker in shade and leaf. The orange looks large, 
but, as we soon find, its size is due to the thick rind, 
not the large rich inside — for, unlike what it is at 
Blidah, the orange here is more for commerce than 
for eating. Almonds are nearly ripe; merino sheep 
appear ; palms grow more numerous and stately ; the 
donkey is larger and white ; the horse is stout and 
elegant ; the women look brighter, and their dark 
optics dance ; the costumes grow very peculiar and 
gay ; the plaintive songs we have heard sung among 
the Arabs we hear repeated — how strangely — even 
here after three hundred and fifty years ; and these 
evidences of prosperity, contentment, and joyance 



Tempe and the Peneus inseparable. 255 

follow us, more or less, till we stand within the 
charmed circle of emerald which environs the proud 
old city of Murcia ! Not that the bleak, bare moun- 
tains, and white, arid plains are not still our com- 
panions all along the route from Carthagena. But, as 
a relief, this terrible sterility is beginning, under the 
system of hydraulics, pursued here yet, and which the 
Moors began, to give way to something like vegetable 
vitality ; but no grand garden of Spain yet — at least, 
none such as we fancied, about these realms of the sun. 

Why all this is, I have shown already in my chapters 
from Algiers. The rain from east and north is here 
dissipated by these heated mountains or sucked down 
south by the desert to fall upon Algiers. Africa 
becomes an Eden and Spain becomes a desert. Only 
irrigation rescues the latter. Here water is a creative 
power. We in America do not know it, except as a 
motive power. We never feel the lack of water, not 
even in our whisky ; and we do not know the want 
of rivers. Let not the harsh North repine. The land of 
' winter sunbeams,' which gives the almond and vine, 
orange and date, is not conquered by man, except 
through labour. The sun may do much, water and 
soil much, but it is man who combines and produces. 
Paul may plant ; his plants will wilt and die, because 
there is no root. Call in Apollos and much water, 
and then God will give the increase. Tempes do not 
come spontaneously to the surface ; but man makes 
them with water, out of the dry ribs of the torpid 
earth. Tempe and the Peneus are inseparable. 

I am not sorry that we halted for Sunday at 
Murcia. This splendid city is seldom visited by 
tourists. It is an exclusive and lordly old Spanish 
place of 60,000 inhabitants. Our posada, or hotel, 
was once a Moorish alcazar, or palace. We could per- 
ceive the tracery of the Byzantine architecture and the 



256 Plaintive Spanish Melody. 



gilt of former splendour. Murcia is the Murgi of 
the Romans. It was once the capital of an ancient 
kingdom of the same name. The Moors bailt the 
city from the Roman ruins. There has been much 
fighting here between Spanish and Moor and Spanish 
and French. The city is even now full of soldiers. 
In the revolution of last September, not a soldier 
would raise a voice, much less a musket, for the 
Queen. She died out, not because the people here 
were republican or revolutionist, but by the general 
disgust entertained for her character. The houses of 
Murcia are painted in yellow or pink. Every window 
has a balcony, every balcony has a beauty, and every 
beauty has a bouquet ; and, when night comes, the 
city is all beatitude and all a-twang with guitars. 
Serenades sound from every quarter and in every 
street. But most, and above all, as if it were an elegy 
and requiem of the dead Moors, there is that same sad 
song — drawling, mournful, everywhere heard, from 
palace and hut — which we heard the Arab Dervishes 
sing when they chanted the Koran ! 

I confess to various essays in regard to this song — 
first, to understand it ; next, to resolve it into music ; 
and then to reconcile it with what I heard in Algiers 
among the Moors. I failed in each essay. Picking 
up Irving, however, I read from him what it meant ; 
but I do not believe that he heard it in Murcia or 
Valencia. It has more significance than he gives to it, 
as the simple music of muleteer, bandit, and contra- 
bandista. He describes it, or rather, he describes all 
Spanish song, as rude and simple with but few in- 
flexions. These the singer chaunts forth with a loud 
voice, and long, drawling cadence. The couplets are 
romances about Moors, or some saintly legend or love 
ditty, or some ballad about a bold contrabandista or 
hardy bandolero. The mule bell or the guitar is the ac- 



I 



Its resemblance to Arabic and Corsican Song, i^'-j 

companiment. This very nearly describes what I desire. 
But I affirm that the music which I heard ah through 
Murcia — city and province — and in Valencia from 
every girl or boy, from sunburnt poverty or grandiose 
elegance, was the same music, if not the same words, 
we heard from the diabolical dervishes who, in their 
religious ecstasies, swallowed scorpions in Algiers ! 
What then ? I am not to be led away by the click of 
the Castanet or the sound of the guitar to other and 
more Spanish airs — -not until I sift this song of songs, 
this sadness of all song. I am satisfied that this uni- 
versal music is the unchanged Arabic Gaunia. It is very 
like the Corsican vocero^ which I have already noticed. 
It begins and ends with an ' ay ! ' or a sigh. It is all love. 
If not for a lady-love, for something beloved : home 
or horse, country or kin, or a mule, perhaps. Our 
driver and his ' mozo ' (carriage imp) sang it into 
Alicante, and improvised their affectionate souvenirs 
of that place into the national music. There is a 
chorus at the end of the verse, sung with a long, 
dilatory, tearful plaint, that spontaneously opens the 
lachrymal duct, without regard to the sentiment sung. 
Generally this lament is sung to the guitar. As a 
fierce and inexorable economist, I find the guitar to 
be a nuisance. The harsh north wind, the constant 
drought, the hot sun, the bull fight, each and all may 
be counted enemies to Spanish prosperity. Buckle 
has, after the manner of his philosophy, gathered in- 
ductively a collection of historical and scientific facts, 
and has concluded, deductively, that the history of 
Spain has been a failure, by reason of her violation of 
the laws of national improvement. He has shown that 
physical phenomena, by inflaming the imagination and 
preventing analysis, have operated on Spain as upon 
other tropical, volcanic, and epidemical lands, to its 
disadvantage and decay. He evidences the heat and 



258 The Guitar an old deceiver, 

dryness of the soil, the deepness of the river beds, 
which forbid irrigation, and the instabihty of the pas- 
toral life, as reasons for the improgressiveness of Spain ; 
but he has never mentioned the guitar. Yet is the 
guitar the especial devil of idleness ; — for does it not 
beget singing and dancing ? Once set it a strumming, 
and all unpin their eyelids at night and open their 
ears by day. Labour, duty, and patriotism, are all for- 
gotten in its music. The guitar is an old deceiver. 
Don Juan was not the first performer, nor the Spanish 
senoritas the first to lean from balconies to hear. It 
is found on the Egyptian tomb of four thousand years 
ago — ribboned in marble over the enduring neck of 
some petrified, love-sick, young Pharaoh or Ramesis. 
It is the kinoor of the desert and Orient; the Greek 
kithara; the guitarre, githome, guitume, and banjo of 
the universal minstrel! It is not always the magical 
guitar described by Shelley in his poem ; which was 
taught to reply to Love's questions, to whisper 
enamoured tones, and sweet oracles of woods and 
dells ; or the harmonies of plains and skies, forests and 
mountains, fountains and echoes, the notes of rills, 
melodies of birds and bees, murmuring of seas, and 
rain, and, finer still, the soft airs of evening dew ; but 
the Spanish guitar had one of the faculties which 
Shelley found in his enchanted instrument : — 

'■ It talks according to the wit 
Of its companions,' : 

and its tinkling talk consists in making the castanet, 
feet, voice, body, spirit, and soul of its company har- 
monize with its service ! 

All Murcia was musical with this minstrelsy. I 
know that it has been called the dullest city in 
Spain. It is not! Go into its great cathedral. 
Do not stop to examine whether it be Corinthian or 
Composite, or both. Never mind the carvings or the 



.V^'/-)J, ll 




H 
X 


D 

w 
h 



« 
O 

E 
o 



A Sunday Bull-fight in Murcia, 259 

relics. Fear not because the earthquake has made 
cracks in the tower and faqade. Go up into the belfry 
— rising, compartment up and out of compartment, 
like a telescope drawn out, and crowned, like all the 
cathedrals of this part of Spain, with a blue dome, 
shining beauteous in the sun. Then look about you. 
See what water will do for the dead earth ; palms, 
standing up and aloof from the other vegetable glories, 
only made more beautiful because surrounded by such 
fire-tossed and twisted rocks as those which bound the 
view of the horizon, and bind the volume of Nature 
here presented. 

Is Murcia dull ? Come with us on Sunday to see 
the bull fight. It is said that the Irish make bulls, the 
Spaniards kill them, and the English eat them. Not to 
see the butchery, is not to see Spain. Murcia is alive 
with the occasion. Do you call it dull to see several 
thousand people streaming down the avenues to the great 
amphitheatre, following the soldiers and the bands, and 
all intent on the ' blood of bulls '? Come in : admission 
is only about ten cents apiece. Look about : a clean 
arena ; a red flag on a pole in the centre. The bands 
strike up ' circus tunes,' in strange discord with the 
sweet and holy chimes of the Cathedral bells. Then 
the Marseillaise Hymn is played. A young Murcian 
soldier tells, me that it is only lately that music of 
that kind has been permitted. I surmised as much. 
Then enter ^n^ persons out of the gates below the 
seats, dressed in tights, red and blue, spangled, like 
circus-actors. One is on a horse and has a pike. He 
wears an ostrich feather, and yellow breeches of leather. 
Look around the theatre : it is a gay scene ! The sun 
glorifies it ; the costumes are very pleasing and various. 
Directly the bull comes out. He is not quite what 
we expected ; rather small and young. He is wel- 
comed by shouts. Young Spain in the lower tiers is 

s 2 



26o Details of the Fight. 



very demonstrative. Three dignitaries enter a box, 
which is draped in red. It is the mayor and the judges. 
Old women are selHng and crying * water' ; and boys, 
American peanuts. The bull trots about rather sur- 
prised. The five fighters on foot begin to run at him, 
shake their red inflammatory mantles at him ; finally 
thrust little barbed sticks into his hide. These poles 
are ornamented with coloured filigree paper, but have 
a sharp nail, so as to make Taurus bleed and dance 
merrily. It is very pretty sport — very. Directly Taurus 
gets mad. He makes a moan. He bellows. He 
dashes at the men right and left. They scrape sand 
lively to jump over the red boards of the arena. He 
clears the ring ; and then, as if thoroughly ashamed of 
the business, and mortified at the tricks of rational 
beings, he trots round to the door, now closed, where 
he came in, and bellows and begs to go out ! This 
goes on for some time, with several bulls. Several 
times Mr. Matador came near taking- — a horn. I 
should not have cared. I was for the bull. Then in 
marched the five and set up four posts, and within the 
posts the chief stood. The four men had to guard 
the chief. That was the little game. The bull knocked 
the posts about their ears, whereat the crowd roared. 
Then, in came another bull, very lively and gamey. 
The matadors worry him with their garments ; then 
with their pointed poles ; then the ' man on horse- 
back,' the picador, with a pike appears. His horse 
trembles. It is a poor, black, half-blinded, Rosi- 
nante ; and no bloody spurring can bring him 
within reach of Taurus. At last the judges give 
the signal to kill the bull. The crowd cry out, 
*No! no!' He has fought so well. I begin to 
like the crowd for that. Then begins more teasing, 
until, the bull being thoroughly aroused, panting and 
glaring, with threads of firoth hanging from his mouth. 



Butchered to make a Murcian Holiday. 161 

and his neck all bleeding with the pricking of the 
barbed sticks, they turn in on him half-a-dozen of white 
and brown bull dogs. Amid roars of fun — it was very 
funny, oh very ! for the bull, — the dogs hang on to his 
flanks, throat, horns, ears, tongue, and nose. He flings 
them about in the air and under him. It was such 
sport ! A horn comes oflj all bloody, then an ear. 
The foaming tongue hangs out. The bull is not down 
yet. The dogs cannot do it. Taurus has won his life. 
He wants to go out. He again thinks he can go out 
as he came in. He does not. His reasoning is in 
vain. Amid shouts, the order is given to kill, and, 
after five thrusts, the sword at last goes into the lungs, 
and the Bovine Gladiator, butchered to make a Mur- 
cian holiday, falls dead under the repeated stroke of 
the sword, to which is added, as a coup-de-grace, some 
dashes of the knife* This is sport ! During the last 
of it the ring is opened, and all the youngsters of 
Murcia rush into the arena hallooing, and following 
with their yells the staggering, dying brute. The child 
thus trained to cruelty, is he not the father of the 
brutal man ? 

Mr. Buckle might have laid a little more emphasis 
on this 'Aspect' of Spanish nature, in his conclusions 
as to its character. Mr. Cobden has said, that so long 
as this continues to be the national sport of high and 
low, so long will Spaniards be indifferent to human 
life, and have their civil contests marked with displays 
of cruelty which make men shudder. 

Sick, ad natcseam, of this rational and national 
sport, we left. "We entered a Catholic Church next 
door, where the preacher was doing his best to speak 
of the gentle Saviour. His periods had been pointed 
and rounded with the shouts of the bull ring. Truly, 
it was hard thus to preach, and it seemed as if the 
preacher laboured* His congregation were sitting 



262 Fierce Andalusian Bulls 



on matting on the floor, and in the dim reHgious 
light of the church. They were nearly all women, 
and, as is the custom, were dressed in black. They 
seemed like people of another world. Certainly they 
did not belong to the world of Spain, as it outwardly 
keeps its Sabbath ! 

Since writing the foregoing, I have seen a real^ 
bloody bull fight ! I am compelled to interpolate a 
description of it, for the reason that the fight at 
Murcia gives no idea of the sport. We were told 
at Murcia that bull-iighting there was child's play 
compared to that at Madrid. So it proved. We 
now have had enough of it. A more brutal, barba- 
rous, horrible thing never was conceived or executed 
under God's blue sky. But I had to see it, though I 
could not sit it out ; and the ladies, who were with 
me, retired on the death of the third horse and second 
bull — retired as colourless as a white handkerchief 
There were no horses killed at Murcia, and there were 
no bull-dogs at Madrid; but at Madrid there were 
superadded the agonies and death of a score of innocent 
horses and six brave bulls. 

The arena at Madrid is much larger than at 
Murcia. It is the Roman theatre over again — the 
Coliseum in resurrection. It was packed with 15,000 
people. The Queen's box, over which floated the 
yellow and red flag of Spain, was empty. Spain does 
not know it, but she is a republic — provisionally. 
The empty box showed it. The first bull let into the 
ring was a splendid one. The Murcianwas.a miserable 
mouse beside the Madrid monster. The latter was of 
the Andalusian kind— brown, big-necked, diabolically 
belligerent, just such as Irving described as having 
seen, in his trip to Grenada from Seville, among the 
Andalusian mountains, when, in 'winding through 
the narrow valleys, he was startled by a hoarse 



for the Arena at Madrid, 263 

bellowing, and beheld above him, on some green fold 
of the mountain side, a herd of fierce Andalusian 
bulls, destined for the combat of the arena.' Irving 
felt an ' agreeable horror in thus contemplating near 
* at hand these terrific animals, clothed with tremendous 
strength, and ranging their native pastures in untamed 
wildness, strangers almost to the face of man, and 
knowing no one but the solitary herdsman who attends 
upon them, and even he, at times, not daring to 
venture to approach them.' I confess that the same 
horror surprised me when the terrific animal appeared 
in the Madrid arena ; but it was not ' agreeable.' By 
being introduced all at once to 15,000 people — ail 
hallooing like savages — the menacing aspect of the 
Andalusian monster was not relieved. When the 
picadores thrust into him their pikes from their horses, 
you should have seen how he tossed the horses upon 
his horns, upturning them and goring them into a 
speedy death. The horsemen themselves were tumbled 
under bull and horse, but, as they were padded or in 
mail, they escaped unhurt, and were lifted again into 
the saddle, while others called off^ the bull by all the 
arts known to the ring. These horses are blindfolded, 
at least on one side ; and are pushed up, with spur and 
lash, to the bull. Sometimes they show fight, with 
their heels ; but generally die without a sign. One of 
the horses survived the loss of his insides for some 
time, yet the impatient crowd shouted for fresh horses. 
Fresh horses were forthcoming ; but they cost little. 
They are but the frames — the gristle and bone of the 
horse ; not horse-flesh and spirit. Such horses may 
be seen in a London cab or New York omnibus, kept 
up by the shafts. Now and then one may show a 
little breeding. 

The ribboned daggers were inserted in the bleeding 
neck of the bull, to goad him on to fury. How he 



264 The Coup de Grace. 

pawed the dust and bellowed ; how he raved madly 
after his tormentors ; how he shook his neck to loosen 
the fangs of the ribboned daggers ; how, at last, the 
trumpet sounded for the espada, or swordsman, to come 
forth and kill; how the crowd hallooed as the bull chased 
the spangled men in the rings ; how they saluted those 
showing the white feather — calling them 'blackguards,' 
' thieves,' ' rascals,' ' dogs ;' how at last the espada, 
dressed in his black velvet, embroidered pants and 
jacket, his head queued and chignoned — -Tatto, by 
name, and famous for his skill — came forth and made 
his speech to the judges, promising to kill the bull in 
the name of the New Constitution ; and how the bull 
fought him for half-an-hour, till at last Tatto (since 
wounded and nearly killed), under his red flag hiding 
his sword, drew the bull's eye to the flag, and, quickly 
drawing the sword from beneath the flag, struck him to 
the lung vitally ; how the bull died — -first falling on his 
knee, then down, then up at his enemies, and at last 
tumbled into the dust, his magnificent strength, de- 
rived from the Andalusian mountains, all gone ; and 
how he was dragged out by six mules dressed in red 
livery, amidst the lash of the dozen drivers and the 
shouts of the Spaniards ; — all these have been often 
told, as they are often repeated here, to the delight of 
the native and to the horror and disgust of the foreign 
part of the population. 

Six great bulls honoured God's day by their martyr- 
dom. The blood, made so familiar to Spanish eyes, 
may return to plague some one. There is a terrible 
lesson to be read in these fights. I am a Puritan — 
when it comes to a bull fight. If this people — who 
are illustrating the lessons here taught upon the plaza 
at Cuba, where the garotte does its bloody, cruel work 
upon its victim — ^expect to have that well-regulated 
liberty which will last, they had better abolish this 



A Burlesque Bull-fight. 265 



bloody diabolism ; and spend the money given for 
bulls and horses intended for immolation to educate 
the masses of the people and prepare for that con- 
summate freedom which I trust is yet to dawn on 
Spain ! 

I confess it was a relief to me when, after writing the 
foregoing, I opened the volume of a friend, Mr. Henry 
Blackburn, and found that the spirit of Cervantes was 
not dead in Spain ; that if not in print, yet in acts, 
there was humour or satire enough to ' take off' the 
abominable practices of the bull ring. He pictures so 
well the bull fights in Seville, which burlesque the 
scenes I have described, that, as a relief from the 
horrors of the reality, and with his consent, I copy his 
description of the caricature. As a true artist, he 
pictures the intrepid senorita, or tauro-maniac who was 
advertised to face the bull in her bloomer costume, with 
cap and red spangled tunic. Having done that, he 
comes to what I may call the 'Tale of the Tub.' 
After the senorita's grace to the president and 
audience, who receive her grandly, she is placed in a 
big tub. There she stands, up to her armpits, waving 
her barbed darts till the bull is let in. The animal 
lowers his head, and after some hesitation and skirmish- 
ing, rushes at the tub. The senorita curls or coils 
herself inside unhurt. 'The bull,' says the author, 
' soon began to get angry, at last caught up the 
barrel on his horns, and rushed bellowing round the 
ring. It looked serious for the tenant. There was a 
general rush of " banderillos " and " chulos " to the 
rescue, but some minutes elapsed before they could 
surround the bull and release the performer from her 
perilous position. When extricated she was smuggled 
ignominiously out of the arena, and we saw the 
brave seilorita no more ; the bull was not killed, but 
" bundled " out of the ring. 



266 Skittles with human Ninepins. 



' The next act was " Skittles." Nine negroes 
(" Bedouins of the Desert"), dressed grotesquely, stood 
up like " ninepins," within a few feet of each other, and 
a frisky novillado^ or young bull, was let in to knock 
them over. The bull struck out right and left, and 
soon overturned them all. They then sat in rows in 
chairs, and were again bowled over, to the delight of 
the assembly. This was great fun, and was repeated 
several times ; the bull liked it, the " ninepins " seemed 
to like it, and the people gloried in it. 

' The third act was a burlesque of the " picadores," a 
grotesque but a sadder sight. Five poor men in rags, 
who, for the sake of two or three reals, allowed them- 
selves to be mounted on donkeys and receive the 
charge of the bull. Here they come in close phalanx, 
cheered by at least 5000 people ; the five donkeys with 
their ears well forward, and their tails set closely be- 
tween their legs ; the ragged " picadores," without 
saddle or bridle, riding with a jaunty air, and a grim 
smile on their dirty faces, that was comical in the ex- 
treme. The gates are opened again, and the bull 
goes to work. He charges them at once, but they 
are so closely packed that they resist the shock and the 
bull retires. He has broken a leg of one of the poor 
animals, but the riders tie it up with a handkerchief, 
and continue marching slowly round, keeping well to- 
gether as their only chance. A few more charges and 
down they all go. The men run for their lives and leap 
the barriers, and the donkeys are thrown up in the air !' 

Do not think, however, that the masses of the 
Spanish people waste their time or substance on these 
barbaric displays. I know better. The working people 
of Spain, especially the agriculturists, are kind, cle- 
ment, industrious, just, sober, and courteous. I do 
not accept one half of the stories told of their super- 
stition and cruelty. I have read in the ' Times ' an 



Snobs and Nods! 16 "j 



account given by an English barrister, who, near 
Murcia, was attending to some very htigious business, 
and who was seized and nearly beaten to a jelly by 
the peasantry and people. He was, according to his 
account, believed to be a child-thief, and he asserts 
that the reason for his seizure was that the common 
people believe that children are stolen for their entrails, 
which are used to grease the telegraph wires ! After 
reading his account, and from some communication 
with the people in and around Murcia, I believe that 
the lawyer was seized by private parties interested in 
closing his legal career in Spain. 

The working people of Spain I have commended. 
They must not be confounded with the riiF-rafF of the 
cities, or with the effete, corrupt, gangrened 'snobs 
and nobs,' by which I mean the hidalgos and nobility 
who have lived on the industry and production of the 
honest and forbearing 'common people' so long, and 
who are now either absent from Spain when her trial 
comes, or else hatching plots in the interest of Isabella 
or Don Carlos, or some one else, to frustrate the 
majestic will of the people. Of that, when I come to 
politics. I am tempted even now to speak of these 
things, for I have been reminded at every turn in 
Spain that her grandees — those who fawned on the 
Queen in power, and who ran away from Spain when 
she was ' turned out ' — do not represent the staunch 
and generous elements of the Spanish character. If I 
may be pardoned for again referring to Washington 
Irving, I find, in looking at the Spanish people, what he 
described — that the severity of the scenery, which I have 
endeavoured to depicture, is in unison with the attri- 
butes of the people. He said that he better understood 
the proud, hardy, frugal, and abstemious Spaniard, his 
manly defiance of hardships and contempt of effemi- 
nate indulgences, since he had seen the country the 



268 Lord How dens Villa. 



Spaniard inhabited ! There is a stern and simple 
sublimity about these dry, calcined, white and yellow, 
sun-dried and heated mountains, which makes one feel 
that the people who have subdued them are worthy of 
a better fate than to be ridden by a blasi aristocracy, 
booted and spurred for their subjection. Five per cent, 
of the Spanish aristocracy and plutocracy may be 
trusted ; ninety-five per cent, are a mass of putrescence. 
The revolution ought to bury it in lime. 

At Murcia we spent an afternoon agreeably in 
visiting a model country villa, the residence of a 
former English Minister to Spain, Lord Howden. His 
Lordship does not live there now, but at Bayonne. 
He is an eccentric man in some respects, and not 
unpleasantly peculiar in his love for an out-of-door life 
and displays of fruit and flower. Besides, he demon- 
strated his independence when advanced in years by 
marrying a beautiful Spanish actress, with whom he 
fell in love. It was January loving May ; and, as a 
consequence, January made of his home here a per- 
petual May. We visited the ex-minister's place in a 
sort of Noah's ark of a carriage, very like an obsolete 
omnibus. We crossed the River Segura, and over a 
rough road, through fields luxuriant with the coming 
harvest. We passed up to the gardens, through an 
avenue of palms, and then under the interlacing 
boughs of the plane-trees, making a close arbour, until 
we find ourselves intoxicated with the fragrance of red 
and pink roses which, in profusion, border the garden- 
paths in every direction. The red pomegranate was in 
full blush, and overhung the rose-trees. A great green 
arbour of wire is near, under which is an immense 
reservoir of water. The donkey which pumped it 
up for the little canals which everywhere intersect the 
grounds, had the satisfaction himself of circulating 
within a pleasant and entrancing spot. No wonder the 



Silk-Worms, 269 



palms flourished here ; their feet are so damp and 
their heads so hot, according to the theory of their 
cultivation. 

Within the house we found every evidence of wealth 
and of that refinement which taste alone can give. 
Marble pavements, vari-coloured, on the first floor, 
and on the upper floor black and white veined marble, 
or rare porcelain, gave to this abode an air of delicacy, 
light, and coolness just suited to a summer abode, 
amidst fragrant flowers and delicious fruit. Here, too, 
we find English engravings of fox-hunts and races, 
and of scenes in the desert ; handsome marble baths ; 
a library rich in choice volumes, and from its win- 
dows a view over the demesne ; and, to crown the 
whole, rare vases filled with fresh flowers, like those in 
Vallambrosa's house at Cannes ; and, outside, a piazza 
curtained with an immense blooming passion vine, 
with fringes of flowering oleanders outside the veran- 
dahs. 

About the grounds peasants were stripping the 
mulberry-trees for the silk-worms. We went to see 
these short-lived workers weave their beautiful tombs. 
They were in the second story of an outhouse, ranged 
on planks a foot apart with little stacks of hay, up to 
the ceiling. The cocoons were already forming for 
these ; others were living heartily on the leaves, which 
were upon another scaflblding. They were all very 
busy. The business pays well in this part of Spain. 

We take one more look at the beautiful villa ; present 
our thanks to the actress's cousin, who was our con- 
ductor, and is bailiff* of his lordship ; and bow to the 
marble medalhons of Francis I. of France and Anna 
of Poictiers, which adorn the face of the mansion. We 
wonder, too, why his lordship, in completing this 
Claude Melnotte picture of a villa, has not created a 
' clear lake,' in which to reflect and double these floral 



270 Picturesque Costume of the Peasants. 



beauties for his theatrical wife, and for his romantic 
life. We pass by fields where peasants are ploughing 
with the Egyptian plough of three thousand years 
ago ; we see them scattering seed as they follow the 
plough ; and after them a bevy of birds, chattering, 
fluttering, and getting a nice supper from the seed 
sown. We admire the picturesque costume of the 
peasants — white shirt and white pants to the knee, and 
very loose, and a brilliant girdle or sash. We thus 
close up the week and have the promise of a Sabbath 
rest. It will be a luxury ; for Sabbaths are rare in 
journeys through European cities. 



( -271 ) 




CHAPTER XV. 

ELCHE, ALICANTE, AND VALENCIA. 

' The palmtree-cinctured city stands, 
Bright white beneath, as heaven bright blue 
Above it/ 

N leaving Murcia for Alicante, our way at 
first lay through narrow streets ; only one 
vehicle at a time can run in them. It re- 
quired the ' mozo/ or coach boy, to be on 
foot half the time, to guide the leader through the 
narrow defiles. Indeed, this mozo performed the duty 
of whipper-up at every hill, with wonderful agility and 
to the horror of all the donkey-drivers in the streets. 
Having horses, tandem, they could not be driven from 
the box ; and the mozo would leap to the ground and 
make the horses dash and the fire fly from the pave- 
ment. Indeed, the French definition of speed in 
driving : ' bruler le pavf^ to burn the pavement, is 
as applicable to the diligence as to a voiture, to a 
macadamized road as to a boulder-paved street. Thus, 
up and down, and out of town, we dashed along ; now 
towns appeared hugging rocky mountains, on which 
old castles frowned loftily, like the baron above his 
vassals ; now mountains as bleak as Vesuvius ; now in 
the blue sky, the pale, whitish moon, much like a 
speck of cloud, and hardly seen — in crescent form — 
symboHzing the decay of Mohammedan power under 
Christian efililgence, appeared ; now, on the road, the 
carts, much like a butcher boy's in New York, being 
two-wheeled vehicles, with a large Jersey round top to 



272 Approach to Elche. 

each, and sides made with canes, appeared; then, and 
often, the white mules of Murcia, tasselled with red, 
and half shaved of their hair, bearing their burdens ; 
and the splendid oxen, in their scarlet head-gear ; and 
during these fresh experiences our driver or his mozo 
sang their prolonged, improvised song about palm- 
trees and their fruit, or about the mountains so rich 
in streams, or about almonds, wheat, and what not. 
While the song was loud and jocund, new phases of 
vegetable beauty gratified our eyes. It was positive 
relief. The eye was tired of the everlasting volcanic ap- 
pearance. We had reached the very climax of aridity 
and desolation ; we had counted the black basalt 
mountains on the horizon, and the ferruginous cal- 
careous hills. We had turned over and over again 
the volume of Nature, looking at its illustrations of 
geology, every leaf a twisted rock of melted granite, or 
of mottled limestone. Lo ! at once, as if by magic, 
the Moorish villas with the twisted columns, and the 
old Moorish water-wheels pumping for water by 
donkey power, appear again ; then the prickly pear in 
bloom about them ; then the gardens of red pepper ; 
then the fig, very forward ; then the peasants in their 
tambourine hats and short, loose pants, split up to the 
knees and opulent with silver buttons ; then a church 
with figures of the Saviour and Virgin in front ; then 
some peasants on the road flourishing their gay man- 
tles ; and then, hot and blistering in the sun, the blue 
and copper domes of a splendid city shine in the 
air ! Palms surround it — palms plumed and beautiful. 
Surrounding these palms, and hemming them in with 
their arid and thirsty forms, are the mountains. We 
may find gardens of perennial verdure, but we never 
lose the sight of the bleak Sierras. They are relieved 
only by the black, basaltic-fused granite, which Pluto, 
from the inner rind of the earth, has pushed up into 




Palms at ^lche. 



Varieties of the Palm. 273 

the light, as ambassadors from the ever-during shades 
to the blue heavens. 

This city, into which we are ushered, under the 
crack of whip, and with wonder and delight, is none 
other than Elche — celebrated in Spain for its forests 
of palms. Indeed, the river here, whose empty bed 
we crossed, is actually drunk dry by the palms. The 
Moors made these plans of irrigation, and faithfully 
the Spanish practise them. The best way to see 
those contrivances, and the palm woods they foster, 
is not to stray along the river, where there are few ; 
but go into the forests, as the Doctor did, and see how 
they are planted in rows and watered in groups. A 
large river is thus used. The palms are not here for 
beauty, but for fruit. It is a business. We went up 
into the cathedral tower of Santa Maria — that of the 
blue dome ! From it, we see first — Alicante on the 
sea, with its towers of blue and brass ; then the sea 
and ships ten miles off; then the castles on the inter- 
vening mountains, and the chateaux lining the roads ; 
then, to the west, the calcined mountains a-glow in 
the furnace at white heat ; then, on the north and east, 
and bending round to the south, beyond the flat 
Moorish roofs of the city, are the straight, tall spires 
of the million palms, each from thirty to fifty feet 
high, whose stems are feathered with curving leaves, 
and golden with flower and fruit! 

We have a weakness for this royal tree. We have 
admired it at St. Remo and Bordighera, whence the 
Pope obtains the palms which are used in sacred 
service, and which he blesses for his flock. We have 
seen them growing in the dust of Nice, and very 
pretty and tropical they seem there ! We have seen 
great colonnades and arcades of them, in the Jardin 
d'Essai, near Algiers, where every variety is to be 
found. We have seen at that African garden, what 

T 



274 ^^^ driest Climate of Europe. 



we never shall see in their native soil — the cocoa and 
betel-nut palms ; both tall, slim, graceful, beautiful ; 
the cocoa palm making for the native a thatched 
abode, leaning from the shore towards the sea, and 
dropping its fruit even in the waves, to be distributed 
among the isles ; while the betel-palm, with its green 
sheaf of leaves, topping a slim stem of six inches 
diameter, rises into the sunny air, forty feet ! We have 
seen other palms, not so graceful, growing all through 
northern Africa, their native home ; but nowhere have 
we seen anything comparable to these palm forests of 
Elche ! It is the sun which here gives them their 
commanding altitude and saccharine fruit, but it is the 
sun aided by his handicraftsman, v/ater ! — water utilized 
by skilful irrigation. 

We are in the driest climate of Europe. All writers 
agree in this. Medical men say, that here is the spot 
for bronchial ailments. We go to Alicante, where 
there are 25,000 people, living in the sarne clear, dry 
air ; and living, not because they have rain from 
heaven, but v/ater from the earth. A splendid spring 
has supplied irrigation for Alicante for a thousand 
years ; but how utterly dusty, hot, and white the in- 
tervening country seems. Only here and there is there 
a green spot, and even then the green has a thirsty 
aspect. The trees are all set in holes to catch and hold 
what water there may be given. It has rained but 
three times this winter and spring at Alicante, conse- 
quently there is no crop of oats and corn, although 
the fields are all ploughed and the seed grain is all in. 
There is a splendid old chateau on the mountain, 
seven hundred feet high, which overlooks Alicante. 
It is thoroughly fortified. It seems clean cut out 
of the sky. No mist or moisture obscures anything. 
The blue of the heavens is intense and bright. The 
shore is shallow, and bathing is common and con- 



Alicante, 275 



venient ; even in winter the water being about 60°. 
Alicante is a great resort for invalids, but medical men 
recommend them to go out of the town under the 
shadow of the mountains, for sometimes the sea makes 
the air moist and relaxing. 

Our landlord welcomed us warmly at Alicante. He 
told us that he knew we were Americans ; for, as he 
said, he had a brother in Brazil ! When we told him 
that we were from the United States of North America, 
he mentioned in a lively way, ' Yorick^ (alas !) ' Bosty^ 
and ' Feedelph^ as cities, to show us his familiarity with 
our beloved land. He was a good landlord, however, 
and did his duty to us. We asked him, ' why Alicante 
was so dry ? ' He said that it was not so very dry, for 
he had found water by digging.' ' Where ? ' 'At his 
garden in another part of the city — would we go and 
see it ? It was green and beautiful.' We said : ' Why 
do you not bore for artesian wells ? ' Not understand- 
ing this, he said that he had gone down one hundred 
feet, and found a fine well ; but he afterwards explained, 
that the idea of an artesian well was novel ; it had 
never been broached here. The rocks about Alicante, 
properly terraced, would smile like those at Nice or 
Mentone, if only watered. Not a blade of grass grows 
here of itself. A few fatty plants, more like dusty 
chips, were found among the rocks. What we re- 
marked going out of Carthagena is to be seen here 
also. The peasant has ploughed up 'lots' of lime- 
stones, ashes, and rubbish, and having planted his oats 
or barley, waits during the long summer glare of sun 
for the rain, expecting some scattered blades to appear ; 
or, while waiting for the crop which may come once 
in three or four years, he relieves the dusty fields by 
watching and watering an olive orchard of dwarfed 
growth, or some fig trees of doubtful life. These he 
waters from a well, whose waters are lifted by the wheel 

T 2 



276 The Castle of Sax. 

or Moorish Noria with donkey power ; or sometimes, 
as we have seen it, pumped by a whole family of 
mother and daughters ; and they call this — the garden 
of Europe ! Sun and earth do not make gardens. 
Eden had four rivers in it, and if Adam did not irri- 
gate, then the perfection of Paradise was found in that 
refinement of Art which miraculously distributed its 
'honey dew' on flowers and fruit, vAthout the sweat of 
unfallen man, or the worry of untempted woman. If 
this land about Alicante is a garden, for ever fragrant, 
flowering and fruitful, as pictured, what is Corsica? 
Here the bee would starve. He could not improve 
each shining hour, for the lack of flowers. Not even 
the thistle grows upon the clayish, herbageless fields. 

We leave Alicante in the morning, and still ascend, 
according to our barometer, on the way to Valencia. 
When one thousand three hundred feet above the sea, 
we begin to see pomegranates and figs in plenty, and 
vines, too, which require less water. But there is this 
paradox with this strange land, that as you rise you 
find more water. We actually see a stream or so, 
running from the mountains. True, the land is bleak 
still, but we find tamarisk and poplars ; and, circled with 
vegetation, a unique town called Sax (rock I suppose, 
from the Latin, saxum), springs out of its green setting, 
and rising jooo feet or more into the air, looks down 
baronially on a company of flat roofs cringing at its 
base for protection. They look like little frightened 
brothers getting on the safe side of a big brother. 
This castle of Sax seemed peaked in the air ; in fact, 
it is just hung on the sharp edge of a pinnacle ! As we 
rise still, the clouds seem on a level with us ; the moun- 
tains seem less, and some pines appear. We are on the 
plateau, I suppose. It grows cooler. We can perceive 
Valencia afar off — fifteen miles. We know that we 
are nearing Valencia, for the rice fields, either green 



The Plain of Valentia an Eden. 277 

or covered with water, are becoming common. We 
are in the irrigated vale which surrounds and supports 
the great city of Valencia. The rice fields contribute 
more to the life than to the health of the city. Every 
mountain top is castled, and running streams appear 
all about us. The apricot adorns the earth, and the 
soil is now changing from white to red. The orange 
grows in shrubs and not luxuriant. The carouba is 
an immense tree. It grows anywhere almost, seem- 
ing to like dust. It is cultivated for its bean, w^hich 
is given as food to cattle. The crops are splendid, 
especially of grain. The peasants are plucking out, 
with their hands, every weed from the grain, or catch- 
ing worms in a sort of black bag at the end of a pole, 
which they pass along or thrust through the lines of 
wheat or barley, with a sort of sleight-of-hand. Now, 
English cottages, neatly thatched with straw, and 
whitewashed, attract the eye ; especially, as they are 
festooned in flowers. Every field is edged with a 
furrow, or ditch, for irrigation. One may begin to 
see that the famous plain of Valencia is indeed an 
Eden. It uses up a river ; quietly absorbing it in 
every way ; but so noiselessly that you hardly wonder 
at its diversion from the bed. Now the villas of the 
rich appear ; and their gardens, glorified by the sun- 
beams as well as fructified by water, make of this plain 
the paragon which is far-famed. Hedges — made of the 
white and red wild rose — here and there appear ; and 
within their enclosure, beautiful houses, tinted with 
yellow and azure. So that you see now what is really 
necessary to constitute beauty. Allow me to illustrate : 
To create the eclectic beauty of the ancients it is not 
only necessary that the eye of the Ideal should be lucid 
and lustrous,, the features proportionate and rounded, 
the hair like that of one of Murillo's Madonnas — the 
very dream of loveliness — the form graceful and lithe, 



278 The Vegetable Splendours of Valentia Vale 

and the step stately and free ; but it requires an internal 
organism of health and ribs of symmetry and strength. 
You cannot have a Venus without bones. To this 
form she must come at last ; as from this she began to 
grow. So this Eden of Valencia so vaunted and so 
beautiful, is made by the very qualities of the ungainly 
rocks and rugged mountains — those ribs of nature — 
which protrude so unpleasantly in the distant sky. The 
soil and the water come from thence ; the skilful hand 
of the Moor gave them culture and direction, and the 
Spaniard does not neglect the lessons of his old enemy. 
It may not be easy to analyse loveliness in the abstract, 
but it may be satisfactory to know how and under 
what conditions loveliness may be reproduced. Lan- 
guage has been exhausted by visitors to describe the 
refinement everywhere around Valencia. One of the 
Spanish archbishops is quoted as saying that not only 
was each church a museum, each season another spring, 
each field a beautiful garden, but their united attrac- 
tions suggest to us some happy spot in the lovely vale 
of Tempe. Others have likened it to the gardens of 
the Hesperides, where the fragrant flowers and golden 
fruit are companions on the same trees, guarded by no 
dragons, unless those be such who are conciliated by a 
few reales. Indeed, the ancients placed their elysium 
somewhere hereabouts. 

I could take my readers up into a high place — not 
as a certain wily potentate did, into a high mountain, 
but the tower of the cathedral, and there, one by one, 
point at these vegetable splendours of Valentia vale. 
Beyond the mosque-shaped domes, which only need 
the crescent to carry them back four hundred years ; 
outside the tall houses, whose windows are shaded with 
the matting curtains so peculiar to this part of Spain ; 
over the fifty church roofs of blue tiles and glistening- 
copper ; outside the great Moorish gates or towers, 



I 



due solely to Irrigation, ' 279 

once used for a parliament, when Valencia had her 
kingdom apart from Castile, and now used as a prison ; 
far beyond the old walls which shut in over a hundred 
thousand people, lies, in the enduring emerald of per- 
ennial spring, this lovely Elysium, this paragon of 
gardens, this terrestrial Paradise ! Spenser's Knight 
of Courtesy, Sir Callidore, had many hardships to under- 
go before he found his bowser of bliss, where maidens 
pressed from the growing grapes the wdne he quaffed, 
and with their roseate 'wine press' (fingers, to wit) 
presented to him goblets purple with the light of love. 
In some sort, we are doing Sir Callidore in faerie 
land. We have gone through the volcanic debris and 
calcined desolation of this south-eastern coast of Spain, 
to find at the end — our Valencian Bower of Bliss. We 
drink to the beauties of its balconies in the sun-w^armed 
wine of its Vega. We have approached it with gradual 
step. Not all at once, but from absolute sterihty to 
sickly clover and stunted vines ; from dusty fig trees 
and scrubby oranges ; from rocks full of geothermal 
heat, radiating in vain upon land where no water is, 
and w^here no green life springs, w^e come at last to a 
vale, through which a whole river, as large as the 
Thames or Wabash, percolates, every drop utilized 
and every gush making its oil for the olive, its gold 
for the orange, its vermilion for the pomegranate, and 
its petal for the magnolia ! Water ! Water ! Water ! 
We are, as bodies, eighty per cent, water. Plants have 
more. What water is, in its analysis, we know. There- 
fore, Americans ! rejoice, I say rejoice in your Mis- 
sissippis, Missouris, Connecticuts, Sacramentos, and 
Hudsons. Rejoice in your mountains, and clouds, 
and rains. You will never know^, till the Great 
Drought w^hich will follow the Great Evaporation 
under the influence of the Great Conflagration, what 
water is in the great economies. Do not, my Ameri- 



iSo A beneficial Climate for Invalids. 

can brother, waste your water by too free an admixture 
of it, with other elements. Use it for horticulture, 
agriculture, and navigation. 

If my writing from Valencia seems too jocund, re- 
member that it is the City of Mirth ! The peasants 
are honest, buoyant and pleasure-seeking. Their music 
is not too sedate ; their dresses are gay as the most 
theatric could wish ; the domes of their churches are 
dressed in cerulean hues ; their streets are twisted, as if 
they had drunk whole rivulets of the dark-red wines of 
the plains around ; their mountains, with true Spanish 
pride, trick themselves, morning and evening, in 
' trailing clouds of glory,' and their river — the honest, 
laborious Turia — does it all ! Without it, there would 
be no Eden here, and no corn and oil, and no people. 

The Turia is spanned by five bridges. The people 
of Valencia ought thus to honour it with these arches 
of triumph, although there is no water to run under 
them ! To be honest, if not poetical ; to be homely, 
if not elegant — the plain of Valencia 'sops' up the 
river, and the Cardinal de Retz wrote well when he 
saw the results of this effort : ' Toute la champagne., 
qui est Smaillee cfun million de difi'^rentes fleurs qui 
flutte7it la vue^ y exhale un million dodeurs dififSrentes 
qui charment Vodorat^ And all these wonders of 
flowers and fragrance are made by a discreet use of 
water, under a latitude of 38°, where it never snows, 
and hardly ever rains ! No wonder the medical world 
send invalids hither for a dry, tonic climate. ' Winter 
sunbeams ' I am looking for. I have found them here 
in white rays, undecomposed by the prism, for there is 
hardly enough nrioisture for a rainbow. The winds 
which blow here, even from the north or west, lose 
their moisture or their cold before they salute Valencia. 
Here, if anywhere out of the Riviera, we find the 
conditions which the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates 



Elevefi Siticides in a March under the Sirocco. 281 

himself, prescribed as essential to good climate and 
good health. Here we find what another doctor, 
— one William Shakespeare — enunciated when he 
made the mad Dane say, ' I am but mad north-north- 
west ; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from 
a handsaw.' When Wellington marched his armies 
through Spain, and when the French did the same, 
the endurance they displayed was utterly wonderful, 
for they had this dry climate ; while in Algiers, under 
the moist climate, or with the sirocco blowing on 
them, they found fatigue, sickness, death, and not 
untrequently death by suicide. On one march, under 
the sirocco, eleven of General Bugeaud's soldiers com- 
mitted suicide. That southern wind was not of the 
kind Shakespeare referred to as sanitary. But winds 
have much to do with health, and the shelter given 
from harsh northern blasts to Alicante and Valencia 
by the mountains north of them, draws out the life of 
man to its largest limit. It conquers even winter — 
that enemy of old age, ini^nicior senibiis hyenis — by 
its genial sunbeams, and its dry, bright atmosphere. 

I do not know how better to end my sojourn here 
than by recalling the contrasts which have led me step 
by step to this spot of luxuriance. They are to be 
found in the mixture of rough and smooth, fertility 
and sterility, hre-burned mountains and water-fed 
valleys — the granite shooting up in great black jets 
through the fantastic limestone mountains, and making 
with castles and towns a picturesque confusion ; as it 
were the moon, first as science knows it, utterly crisp 
and dead — ashes, ashes, ashes — and then, the same orb 
all at once enchanted and enchanting, as if under a 
lovef s fancy, and making an Eden of Earth ! This is 
the last analysis of our trip through south-eastern 
Spain. We have lingered amidst this garden, naming 
its flowers, like our- first mother. We have wondered 



282 Vampires. 



at its wealth of luxuriance. Marvelling more, we have 
thought it strange that a people, so ingenious and 
industrious as the Spanish labourer and peasant, should 
so long have submitted to the rule of aristocratic 
vampires. These, sucking their blood, eating up their 
substance, building palaces out of their industry, have, 
like the nobles and aristocrats of the French Revo- 
lution, deserted their benefactors and left their land 
a prey to whatever of political riot and disease may 
come upon it, under the conflicts of faction and party. 
But I should reserve all political thoughts till I reach 
Madrid, and there learn more precisely the present 
situation and prospects of the Spanish nation. 



( ^83 ) 




The Alhainbra, 



CHAPTER XVI. 



GRENADA— ANDAL USIA. 



'■ Te Deum Laudamus ! was up the Alcala sung : 
Down from the Alhambra's minarets were all the crescents flung; 
The arms thereon of Arragon they with Castile display ; 
One king comes in, in triumph— one weeping goes away/ 

Spanish Ballad. 

F a tourist be at Madrid, there is but one 
good way to reach Grenada, namely, by 
rail to Menzibar, nearly due south, and 
arriving after twelve hours, breakfast there, 
and thence by diligence to Grenada, arriving about 
ten at night. I am particular to state this, for the 




284 The Pachydermatous Mule made Sensitive, 

guide books are blind or faulty. The latter part of 
the trip by diligence is very inspiring. If you are 
particular, get a seat as we did, in the ' berlina,' which 
is Spanish for coupL The way the eight or more 
mules are made to travel, under the direction of the 
conductor or mayoral, lash of postilion, and hurrah of 
driver — and especially up hill, where the tug comes — 
would astonish an English or American Jehu. 

The diligence is very heavy, but its rattle is lively. 
The mules are shaven half way down. Their tails, too, 
are half shaved, with a tuft of hair left at their roots, 
spreading out into a sort of moustache at the os 
coccygis. This shaving of the mule is said to be a 
sanitary process. It prevents cutaneous disorders and 
keeps him cool. The way that ' meek child of misery ' 
is lampooned by driver, postilion, and director, and 
sometimes by a passenger who hires an outside seat in 
lieu of the conductor, who retires within, demonstrates 
that the barbering has speed for its object. To secure 
speed the pachydermatous outside of the mule is 
rendered, by shearing, somewhat sensible to the lash 
and whip stock. The mule is said to be the favourite 
animal in Spain, but he is treated very harshly. He 
is suited to the acclivities and declivities of the country, 
and his stubbornness and resignation, his endurance 
and imperturbability seem to be suited to the Spanish 
race. I know that even outside of Spain he has been 
abused. He is sometimes called an ass. But he boasts 
that if he has an ass for his father, he has a horse 
for his mother ! How he was abused in America 
during our civil war ! Yet the war paths were mac- 
adamized with his bones. The phosphorescence from 
their decay led many a brigadier to glory. I used to 
think it hard that legislators offered resolutions of 
thanks to so many brigadiers and other generals, while 
never a one was tendered to the mule. 



Mule Driving. 285 



In Spain a good mule is worth more than a horse. 
The best mule will bring three or four hundred dollars, 
while the best horse generally brings two hundred. 
The minimum price is nearly in the same proportion. 
Most of the mules come from the Pyrenees, or France. 
Prim drives a team of six, in gorgeous ruddy accoutre- 
ments. They are the coach horses, as an Irishmaa 
would say, of the best families. Sometimes their 
coats are clipped or shaved fantastically, zebra style, or 
in spots ; Gipsies do this well. As we travel we may 
see them armed, like Atropos, with shears, emblematic 
of their profession as mule barbers. 

On our route to Grenada, justice compels us to say, 
that the whipping of the mules has not so much to do 
with our speed as the hallooing. Every mule has a 
name. The name generally is resonant. It ends in 
an a or an 0. The opportunity of exercising the 
OS rotttndiun is never neglected. Our driver had a 
knack of running his fist into his ear, so that he was 
not stunned at his own horrid howling. Our leading 
mule was named ' Romero.' My old friend, the 
Mexican Minister, would be shocked to hear the 
variety of intonations and expletives wherewith his 
musical name was sounded and accompanied. The 
general tone rises at the ending of the word, thus : — 
Ro-me-r-o-o-o-<9-^-o-0 ! ! The particular mule ad- 
dressed by name, generally signifies his possession of 
ears, for he ' gets up.' When we came to pass 
through the narrow streets of the towns — Jaen, for 
example — and with our team of eight, when the 
immense diligence undertook to turn at right angles, 
and that, too, in streets so narrow that the wheels 
grazed the houses on either side, ah ! there and then 
was skill worthy of a charioteer in the Olympian 
games. To crowd the^ eight mules into one, to make 
that one gallop and fiy round in a hurry, required 



286 Andalusia a Terrestrial Paradise, 

2i finesse and elan accomplished only by the postilion 
afoot with lash, by the conductor with a magazine of 
stones, and by the united and turbulent hallooing of all 
the three persons employed — at all the eight mules 
by name, at the same time ! The dark-eyed senoritas 
stopped watering their flowers in the balconies to gaze 
after us ; beggars forgot to show their sores and whine 
their plaints ; the cobbler in the basement waxed 
curious and gazed after us as if it were his last, last 
look. I could never become accustomed to the in- 
cessant hubbub and beating of the animals. I believe 
that the Spaniard thinks that his voice is ever sweet to 
the mule, even when raised to a screech, and that his 
whacks with the butt end of his whip are oats and 
refreshment. Was it not Irving who remarked that 
dry blows serve in lieu of provender in Spain, for all 
beasts of burden ? We stopped at the famous city of 
Jaen for dinner, sauntered up the high hill to the 
cathedral, and took a survey of the scene. It was not 
the historic associations, or the old towers of the 
church, that seemed most peculiar to Jaen; but her 
caballeros. What groups of lazy dignity ; how they 
did seem to stand, as if idleness alone were honourable, 
the only effort being to light a fresh cigarette, or gaze 
after the stranger. I introduce to the reader one of 
these groups. 

In going from Madrid to Grenada you pass through 
La Mancha. It is apparently very bleak and unin- 
teresting. It is not so dry and calcareous, or calcined, 
as the country between Murcia and Carthagena ; but 
is not comparable to the magnificent country between 
Grenada and Cordova, or Cordova and Seville. These 
latter are the best parts of Spain, and do justice to the 
reputation given to Andalusia by Moor and Christian, 
as a terrestrial paradise. We do not see much else, 
however, between Madrid and Grenada, than valleys of 



Oriental Character of Spain. 287 

grain and mountains of sterility. Few trees are visible, 
but the people are everj^vhere interesting ; not aJ one 
because they are the result of a mixture of Celt, 
Greek, Phoenician, Carthaginian and Roman of the 
elder day, with the native Iberian ; not alone because 
the Goths and Vandals here mingled their tough 
spirits and heroic blood with these races, but because 
the ]\Ioor — the child of the Orient — has himself freely 
mixed with each and all, and transfused into the dark, 
lustrous eye and lithe figure of the Spaniard, the 
imaginative, poetical, and luxuriant qualities of the 
East. 

The oriental character of Spain is everyw^here ob- 
servable. Spain has always been apart from Europe. 
The iNIoors overran the peninsula from Gibraltar 
to the Pyrenees, and were only stopped from over- 
running France by the battle of Tours. They left 
their impress not alone in their alcazars, their houses, 
their palaces, their systems of horticulture, agriculture, 
pisciculture and irrigation, but in the very blood and 
bones of the Spaniard. The traveller is surprised now 
and then at finding so many fair-faced and even light 
and red-haired people in Spain, especially in Castile. 
He notices it, because it is exceptional, as he thinks. 
These are signs of Gothic invasion and conquest. 
But the Moors have been here within three hundred 
and seventy years. In the year of the discovery of 
America, Isabella and Ferdinand received from Boabdil 
the key of the Alhambra. This strange race, full of 
science, learning, grace, chivalry and dash — who at 
one stroke struck off the crowns from the kings of all 
the nations, from India to Morocco — subsided like 
an ebbing wave. 

The bull-fight, the most obnoxious institution yet 
to be seen in Spain, was one of the legacies of the 
Aloor, and seems to me very incongruous with the re- 



288 Spanish love of display. 

finement of that civilization which Europe in the dark 
ages came to learn in the schools and universities at 
Cordova, Toledo, Seville, and Grenada. But the bull- 
fight was the brutal, sanguinary side of the Moorish 
character. Wherever you go in Andalusia, you will 
find the radiance of this brilliant though dusky 
people. 

The Spanish alamedas, or public promenades, show 
a wonderful variety of people and costume. I'he 
white-kilted Valencian is a picture ; and the velvet 
clad Andalusian is another. The lady decked with her 
unvarying dark mantilla, and the grave gentleman 
without avocation, in his Spanish cloak hiding his 
tatters (so common in America — I mean the cloak — 
a quarter of a century ago) thrown over the left 
shoulder in a grand way ; not to speak of the Majo, 
or Spanish exquisite, who is called here lechugino^ 
signifying a sucking pig and a small lettuce ; and the 
Spanish students whom we meet every time we walk 
in and around the Alhambra precincts, and some- 
times, as on Sunday last, in groups, with their caps 
worn in a jaunty way and cloaks lined with the most 
inflammatory red, and always showing the lining — 
these give evidence that for display the Spaniard will 
do anything. It is either Irving or Ford who says 
that he will rob his larder, and eke out a scanty meal 
with a few vegetables, in order to furnish his wife with 
a graceful mantilla and himself with a dark capa ! 

A new era of progressive ideas is dawning for Spain. 
This is observable not alone in the free discussions 
of the Cortes, but from the better order prevalent 
throughout the couiitry. We have seen no drunken- 
ness, no rows, no fights anywhere. We have had 
occasion to make this observation, especially between 
Grenada and Madrid. There is little or no evidence 
of repressive measures. True, we see soldiers saunter- 



'Virgilium tantum vidi'. 289 

ing, gun in hand, along the highway between Jaen 
and Grenada, but they are continued here now from 
habit. There have been no robberies for some time. 
The bandits are as scarce as the contrabandistas, of 
whom Irving tells so many stories of forty years ago. 
Even the gipsies, about whom Matteo, Irving's valet, 
used to tell horrors, are as well behaved as the Arabs 
and Kabyles of Algiers. We have been among them, 
ajid can testify to their good conduct, nice homes and 
fascinating dances. 

In the winter of 1852, I saw Washington Irving for 
the first and only time — Virgilium tantum vidi—dxid \ 
well remember that he said to me, 'If you would taste 
the Orient with a dash of Arabian spice, you may do it 
in Spain. Go to Andalusia. Go, as I was accustomed 
to go, on horseback, through its mountains and 
valleys ; and, above all, see the monuments of Moorish 
elegance and grandeur in the Mosque of Cordova, 
the Alcazar of Seville, and the Alhambra at Grenada,' 
I then made a pilgrim's vow, at some day to see the 
mountains, fortresses, castles, gardens, palaces and 
homes, to which the genius of Irving has added an 
enchantment, which the Moorish architect, the Arab 
story-teller, the Spanish poet and the monastic historian 
did not and could not bestow. 

The builder of the Alhambra was an illustrious cap- 
tain, a great prince, a good king, and as married as 
Solomon. His monuments remain about as Irving 
saw them forty years ago! The Moorish character 
still remains, although there is so much that is 
changed. Even since Irving was here, what changes ! 
What changes in and around the Alhambra! A 
fortnight goes by here so delightfully, that it is more 
like a dream than reality, and leaves little time for 
writing commentaries. One of these changes, however, 
is so striking, that I may be permitted to record it. 

u 



290 Reflections suggested by the Alhambra. 

Last Sunday, three thousand republican volunteers 
were under arms, training with the manual — marching, 
countermarching, double-quick, mark time — and all 
reviewed by a repubHcan alcalde ; and this, too, within 
the royal walls of the Alhambra ! Here, where in old 
Yusef's day forty thousand soldiers could be sustained 
within these rough, red walls, and where four hundred 
thousand people slept in the city under their pro- 
tection ; here, where once issued to and from the gate 
of justice, to the plaza of cisterns, Moorish squadrons 
of horse and soldiers afoot, with banners flying and 
scimetars drawn, white guards and black guards ; here, 
where thronged to high mass the conquering host of 
Isabella and Ferdinand, in 1492 ; — here where Co- 
lumbus waited on their Majesties so wearily — when 
from these halls, his requests refused, 'indignantly did 
he toward the ocean bend his way, and shaking from 
his feet the dust of Spain ;' here, whither he was recalled 
to fresh energy in his enterprise ; — where the cuirassed 
knight and silken courtier, the grand cardinal and 
great captain, mitred prelate and shaven monk, bowed 
at one altar with King and Queen, to thank God for 
their victory over Boabdil and for the taking of the 
fortress — here, on last Sunday, on this very plaza, I 
mingled with the republican throng of many thou- 
sands, who were practising their tactics for the struggle 
of the future! 

It is something that Yusef or Irving could never 
have anticipated. A republican muster of volunteers 
in front of the palace of Charles V., and within the 
shadow of the ruddy towers of the Moorish fortress ! 
The spell is broken indeed ! We are living in an era 
of transitions. Creeds die, and prejudices give way. 
Old monuments like these around Grenada may re- 
main, but the foundations of the social fabric are 
stirred by popular tremblings. Like a wild courser, 



Water-drinking, 29 1 



leaping along the highway, and down the bye way, 
or like one of those splendid equestrian effigies which 
Art has copied from Nature in this clime of the Arab 
steed — fit to symbolize the war horse of Job — Pro- 
gress shakes its mane, and thunders over the pave- 
ment, it may be in unbridled freedom ; but the chariot 
follows in a smooth and even course, and the goal 
is approached in safety ! May the Progress of Spain 
find a similar realization at the end of the course! 
Certainly the crowds upon the plaza preserve the best 
order. All the city have wandered up to those heights 
this beautiful Sunday afternoon. The companies are 
manoeuvring and a band is playing. Water-carriers 
are singing \}iitv[: agua fresca — 'freshwater!' Qnien 
quiere agtca? — 'Who wants water?' — and vending it 
to ■ drinkers at a quarto a glass. Everybody here is 
thirsty, but no one drinks anything but the crystal, 
cool water which comes down from the Sierras. The 
English drink beer ; the Germans swallow their lager ; 
the French drink their absinthe ; the Americans their 
whisky and bitters ; but the Spaniards, as a people, 
drink water ! Their air is so dry and exhilarating, and 
their wines are so rich, that water is to them indis- 
pensable. Everybody, men, women, and children, are 
drinking it on this Sabbath day. The wheel at the 
cistern, immortalized by Irving, is going briskly ; the 
carriers fill their little wooden casks, ^il them on their 
backs, and sing away, Agua ! Agtia ! A few pea-nut 
peddlers also appear. 

Where I sit, upon the stone bench near the wall, 
are some half-dozen senoras and seiioritas, dressed 
fashionably. They are of the better class, and have 
come up, as I infer from their manner, to laugh at 
the republicans. The awkwardness of the volunteers 
seems to them, just now, very funny. Beggars ply 
their vocation, and exhibit their arg2inientuin ad 

V. 2 



292, Fresh tears of the Ghost of BoabdiL 

misericordiam^ with woful plaints and saddest ulula- 
tion. Beautiful women — without bonnets, all in black 
mantillas, only a veil of that hue upon their glossy- 
hair, and having unmistakably the dark Moorish eye, 
saunter about with nonchalant air. These are ' Spain's 
dark glancing daughters angelically kind,' whom Byron 
found at Cadiz, and whom we shall find all through 
Andalusia. 

All are strangers to me except one or two of 
the volunteers, keepers of the Alhambra, who have re- 
cognised me before as a republican 'and a brother,' 
with whom I gossip much amid the palace walls, 
and by whom I am now introduced to many others. 
Presently we see the captain of a company whose face 
is familiar. It is Captain Mariano, of the Hotel 
' Washington Irving.' He marches by with his com- 
pany of ' boastful but brave Andalusians,' and salutes 
us with ' Viva Republica /' ' Viva America /' and 
we respond. Ghost of Boabdil, the Yellow-bearded! 
The tears you shed on leaving the Alhambra, and for 
which your cruel mother reproached you, may well 
flow afresh ! 

They certainly would, if Boabdil could have seen a 
company of a hundred and more of these republicans 
drinking, on the invitation of the writer, from the 
spiggot fixed adroitly to the leg of a dead porker, 
whose skin was plump with the Valdepenas vintage, 
and drinking to the Spanish Republic, on an American 
model ! And when cheers went up from the gardens 
of the Fonda, for America! her Minister! and a 
federal republic for Spain ! were they not followed by 
the ' goblet's tributary round,' from the hogskins above 
mentioned ? And when the writer, — I should say 
speaker, — responded, in a modest way of course, to 
the salutations, on behalf of some forty millions of 
American republicans, — the shade of Isabella of Cas- 



The Republicans entertained by the Author. 293 

tile must have sighed for the ill-spent bijouterie where- 
with she encouraged Columbus to discover so re- 
publican a world as America. The scene is worth 
remembering. It indicates the changes here since 
1829, when Irving lived in the Alhambra. 

In consideration of the peculiarity of this phase 
of my experience at the Alhambra, I propose to do 
two things in this volume, for which I deliberately 
turn my back to the critical lash. One is the publish- 
ing my bill of fare, and the expense thereof, of this 
republican festivity, that the future American when 
he does likewise, may count the cost. Here it is : — 

Reales. 

Convite republicanos federales, — 4 arobas (hogs skins) de 

vino 168 

Nan (9) asistunas y 9 incurtidos (slices) 48 

Segars 36 

9 libras de solchilson 144 

Gomida de los officiales 96 

492 

Secondly: I produce the remarks made by the 
author on that occasion. Who reported them, 
modesty declines to mention. They are reported as 
they were spoken, on the Spanish model. Here is the 
report : — 

With many cheers for the republic, their captain, 
and the American Minister, Mr. Hale — who arrived 
while they were assembling — the wine was passed and 
the hilarity began. After the company had enjoyed the 
hospitalities. Captain Mariano introduced to them 
the gentleman who had invited them to the entertain- 
ment. He was received by the company with many 
vivas, and spoke as follows : — 

' Senores ! Republicanos ! I speak from the hospit- 
able gardens of the 'Washington Irving' Hotel. It 
bears the name of the most honoured of American 



294 Speech of an American Republican 

republicans. (Vivas.) His name is not less known in 
the republic of letters than in the American republic. 
I regret that I cannot acknowledge your courtesy and 
sentiments in behalf of my country, its Minister, and 
myself, the humblest of its representatives, in your own 
magnificent' language. I shall ask my Irish friend, 
Senor Maurice Mullone, to translate my words. They 
will not lose, but gain much, by his translation, and 
into your own tongue. Your language is called the 
eldest son of the Latin, and from distant days through 
many vicissitudes — from the great Republic of Rome 
to the latest free utterance of your republican mem- 
bers of the constituent Cortes, this language of Cicero 
has syllabled the aspirations and preserved the laws of 
republican liberty. (Vivas.) It is a gorgeous vehicle 
for the conveyance of truth. It may be perverted. It 
has been even here. But here, where I have seen, 
within those walls of the Alhambra, so many elegant 
effigies of dead dynasties — of Moorish absolutism 
in its barbaric pomp and delicate refinement, and 
Spanish royalty in its most arrogant pretensions 
and aggravated exactions ; here in Grenada, where 
repose the bones of Ferdinand and Isabella, who aided 
Columbus in the discovery of a new hemisphere, as the 
home of republics, and who are, therefore and thereby, 
made lustrous in history ; here, where, if anywhere, the 
signs of royal power have the fascinating glamour of 
the past ; here, I have seen to-day, under arms, in 
front of the unfinished palace of Charles V., and under 
the shadow of the old dismantled tower of the Alham- 
bra, three thousand volunteer soldiers of a federal 
Spanish Government. (Great vivas ! bravos !) V^hile 
by the policy of the American republic, the American 
people do not intervene with arms in the affairs of 
foreign nations ; while the American Minister cannot, 
with propriety, answer the partisan salutation you 



to the Spanish Republicans. 295 

have tendered, yet I say to you, speaking consciously 
the unanimous voice of my country, that there are 
forty milHons of republicans there, of all sects and par- 
ties, extending their hands, as they have extended their 
example, to welcome the birth of a Spanish republic ! 
(Vivas.) More than that, there are twelve other 
republics of the New World which would lift up 
their voice in your own grand language for a new 
order in their mother country. (Vivas.) You have 
cried "Long live the Republic!" (Vivas.) Do not 
despair of the republic ! You have no king. (Cries of 
"No.") You have no queen. (Loud cries of "No, 
no ! " and vivas.) You are now a republic ! You may 
have heard of the man who was astonished when 
told that he spoke prose. You may be astonished 
when I tell you that you are now under a republic 
(vivas), and yet you live ! You earn your wages. Your 
young seiioritas are still winsome, winning, and being 
won. (Laughter.) Your senoras will still embrace you 
and present you children. (Laughter.) And yet all this 
under a republic ! This can be continued. Organize 
your system ; and then select your chief; not alone 
because he is a general, but because he is a citizen — 
honest, patriotic, and intelligent. Call him what you 
please ; but make him not supreme ; only the executive 
of your supreme will, expressed through your provincial 
organisms, public opinion, and a constituted federal 
order. Thus you will make the republic, now pro- 
visional and national at Madrid, in your Cortes, 
federal throughout each province of your historic 
land! (Vivas.) You saluted me with the cry: "Long 
live the Federal Republic." A federal republic is 
rational, for every land and for each hemisphere. A 
republic not federal would lead, as the French Republic 
led, to the lantern and the guillotine ! Liberty herself 
might be the first victim ! A federal republic implies 



296 The Oration continued, 

personal liberty, consisting with social order and public 
spirit. In a federal republic there is a foedus, a league, 
a bund of States ; each State sovereign over its 
home-concerns ; having its provincial legislature, its 
ancient customs and franchises, unimpaired by central 
power, whether that central power be consolidated 
in an executive tyrant of one head, or a legislative 
tyrant of many heads. To attain such a republic 
requires moderation with freedom. You have already 
made progress in commercial and industrial freedom. 
You have already freedom of discussion and of opinion, 
in speech and press, and freedom of soul and body. 
You can perpetuate these only by self-imposed re- 
straints. Your vegas, which lie below us, are warmed 
by the sun, but they are tempered by the snows 
of the sierras above them. Your harvests come as 
well from the warm solar breath as from the melted 
snows. It is so with your Liberties. Heaven gives you 
enthusiasm. It is in your warm hearts. Reason gives 
you the coolness of moderation, by which to temper 
enthusiasm. Joining enthusiasm with reason. Liberty 
results. Under her reign, your plains will be green and 
golden with fruitful industry, your homes happy, and 
your republic a realization of your most splendid 
hopes ! To restrain freedom by moderation, avoid the 
excesses incident to revolutions, frown upon infidel and 
rash counsels among yourselves ; reserve the ballot 
and keep it pure ; reserve the freedom of the press, and 
keep it rational and fair : the right to worship God 
without secular hindrance ; the ^right of life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness ; and to conserve these, 
constitute your republic, not as a tyrannical, consoli- 
dated unity, but as a democratic, decentralized diversity 
in unity, E pluribus Unum — in fine, a federal republic ! 
(Vivas.) 

' Your mountains are rich in every kind of precious 



A Federal Republic reco^nmended to Spain. 297 

material, especially marbles. Build your temple out 
of the various marbles of different colours, hewn, they 
may be, by different hands, and of different sizes ; but 
let them all be fitly joined together, and the founda- 
tions so firm, and the arches so keyed, that no con- 
vulsions of the passionate populace, and no reaction 
of king-craft, -shall shake them from their proper 
places. You have it in your power thus to create, out 
of dissimilar materials and interests, a federate unity. 
If, however, your elected rulers prefer a monarchy 
— (murmurs) — bide your time and struggle rather 
with rational, than with violent methods. Civil war, 
Spaniards, is the grave of liberty ! 

' If they give you the federal republic — ^which God 
help ! — guard it with vestal vigilance, for it is a more 
precious legacy than all yonder monuments of Moorish 
luxury or Spanish regality — (vivas) — which fill this 
atmosphere with enchantment. Such a republic is 
the United States, under its written Constitution. 
May your Cortes make for you such an organic law. 
(Vivas.) They cannot do better than the Eternal 
God ! He has made the planets above us — each having 
a sphere, and all circling round a central orb. Valencia, 
Valladolid, Aragon, Toledo, Estremadura, Murcia, 
Catalonia, Grenada — each having an ancient order, 
established customs, provincial rights, and peculiar 
methods for their observance, may revolve like the 
planets, in their own circles, and in safety around a 
federal central luminary ; which, without consuming, 
will illumine each and all. Thus the central power 
may be preserved, without aggrandizing itself at the 
cost or loss of provincial independence and personal 
liberty. (Great vivas.) Then you will not be harmed 
in person, nor be taxed in property unless you consent 
to it (vivas), by your own representative, voted for by 
yourself Thus, each Grenadian will become not less 



2^98 Enthusiasm of the Audience, 

a Spaniard, though always a Grenadian, and ever a man ! 
He will become, as the American republican is — or 
ought to be under our Constitution — a sovereign, 
divinely anointed and crowned, and bearing his own 
sceptre, by the grace of God ! (Vivas.) 

' In the m.eridian of Roman power, your own Anda- 
lusia gave to the world Adrian, Theodosius, and Tra- 
jan. They were born at Seville. Your great Gothic 
kings were elected by your people ; but they wore the 
purple often careless of the people they ruled. Your 
Spanish kings, Charles, Philip, Ferdinand — in whose 
jewels Spain shines in history — all these belong to the 
dead past. They are dust. Their swords and sceptres 
at best were emblematic of rude and absolute sway. 
Their thrones were erected in the petrification of the 
human heart. When the people have empire here — 
every man bearing the fasces of the republic in the 
procession of power — then a new epoch will dawn for 
Spain ! Before its splendours will pale all the glories of 
royalty! I salute you, Senores, as from the great 
American Federation ; and drink to the permanent 
establishment of the Empire of the People, whose reign 
may it be more beautiful than the Alhambra, and more 
enduring than the marbles of your kings !' (Prolonged 
vivas.) 

It is needless to say, that the evening thus celebrated 
in the gardens of the Fonda, was joyous beyond expres- 
sion. It is treated by the author as a happy phase of 
Andalusian hilarity ; but the earnestness of the audience, 
and their rapt attention to the lessons and metaphors 
of Federation, show that there is an anxiety to learn, 
as well as to practise, the lessons of moderation and 
liberty. From that evening forward, he never ceased 
to watch the varying phases of Spanish poUtics. The 
sequel will show how faithfully he has recorded facts, 
and with what foresight he has reasoned upon them. 




a: 
m 

X 

X 



Reminiscences of Irving at the Alhambra. 299 

For Spain, all liberty-loving people- — whether under 
a polity republican in form or not — lift up their voice 
in the prayer implied in the Byronic line : — 

' When shall her olive branch be free from blight ! ' 

It is not for me to write more than general impres- 
sions of the Alhambra. Where Irving has done so 
miuch, it Vv^ould be a rude hand that would touch the 
canvas. Still there are changes — other than political 
— since he lived here, which I may notice. Only one 
person, among all those whom Irving describes, remains. 
You rem.ember Zia Antonia (Aunt Antonia), who had 
charge of the Alhambra, and received its visitors and 
dispensed its favours and flowers, who lived in a corner 
of the palace, with her nephew and niece, and with 
whom Irving lived, as it were, in her household. She 
is not the survivor. She is dead. Her niece, too, the 
damsel Dolores, who had as many arch-ways as the 
Alhambra itself, whose ' bright looks merited a merrier 
name,' the heiress of her aunt and the fiancee of her 
cousin, she and her husband are gone to the grave. 
She left two deaf and dumb daughters, and one sur- 
vives, the heiress of the aunt's possessions, ' consisting 
of certain ruinous tenements in the fortress,' as Irving 
then described them, but now, I am glad to say, in 
good repair. But she resides in Malaga, and is not 
here. This soHtary granddaughter of his talkative 
hostess is absent and ' mute.' 

The one survivor here is none other than that ' tall, 
meagre varlet, whose rusty brown cloak was intended 
to conceal the ragged state of his nether garments ' — 
whom Irving found lounging in the sunshine at the 
gateway of the domains, gossiping with a soldier — 
none other than that ' hijo de la Alhambra,' Mateo 
Ximenes. Irving adopted him into his service as valet, 
cicerone, guide, guard, and historiographic squire ; 



300 Changes in the Alhainbra within Forty years. 

heard his marvellous stories ; pictured his quaint, 
superserviceable zeal with most magical touch ; made 
even his grandfather, the legendary tailor, an historical 
study — in fine, he was the gossiping Figaro of the 
Alhambra, and to Irving a very Sancho Panza in his 
search after its romances, as well as his Asmodeus, who 
uncovered the roofs of Grenada for his study of its 
domestic life. 

Mateo is yet living. I had the honour of congratu- 
lating him on his seventy-seventh birthday. He is a 
little the worse for wear and time. His head is well 
sprinkled with gray. He wears a jacket yet, after the 
Spanish manner, and a nice Andalusian hat of velvet, 
but he is no longer able to do the duties of cicerone. 
His son Jose inherits that office. Mateo makes (by 
proxy) ribbons of various colours upon a loom in his 
house. He was a ribbon weaver, as his father was, and 
carries on the work still by deputy. He loves to talk 
about Irving, and is very proud of the immortality 
secured him by the American author's pen. 

Much else has changed in the Alhambra. That 
angling in the sky for swallows and martlets which 
Irving so graphically pictured, as the employment of 
the school urchins, is now obsolete. The ' sons of the 
Alhambra' allow the birds to live and guard their 
fruit! The first court, called de la Alberca^ or Fish 
Pond, in which Irving used to bathe, is still clear, 
cool, and inviting. It is surrounded with a lovely 
hedge of myrtles, clipped square, and is full of gold 
fish. But the frogs which croaked there are gone. 
The saloons upon the right of the corridors of this court 
were once occupied by the Sultanas. The rooms have 
been much changed since the Moorish days, and since 
Irving was here. The archives here collected, and 
which Irving read, disappeared in i860. There is a 
recess in the wall, where I saw two splendid Moorish 



Moorish Tears for their lost Alhambra. 301 

vases, enamelled in blue, white, and gold. They were 
found full of Moorish gold, since Irving s time, and 
there is that much fact for the foundation of his beau- 
tiful tales of the ' Moor's Legacy ' and the ' Two Dis- 
creet Statues.' I did not learn that any Arabic writing 
in a sandal-wood box, or any wreath of golden myrtle, 
were concomitants with, or necessary to the discovery. 

My courier, a month ago, found in the Court of 
Lions, seated by the fountain, an old turbaned man. 
He was none of the visionary enchanted Arabs of 
whom Mateo used to inform Irving, but a Turkish 
general, a tourist. He was found by the courier, beat- 
ing his breast and shedding tears over those relics 
and ruins of his race. From my observation, in 
Africa, I can testify, that what Irving says in reference 
to the sighing of the Moors for this, their terrestrial 
paradise, is true. They believe, even yet, that Spain 
will fall, and that they will be restored to these their 
old homes. They preserve not only the old keys of 
their houses, and the titles of their property, but their 
lineage, so as to claim their own in their good time 
coming. One of our friends in Algiers, Mustapha, 
indulges this hope. But the sight of three thousand 
republicans marching within the walls of the Alham- 
bra, and the vision of Spain with free speech, free 
press, and free soul, would dissipate their dreams. 

One word more about the Alhambra. Ravishing 
as an architectural study, the purpose for which it was 
built makes it morally suggestive only of degradation 
to human nature. The inner life of the harem must 
have been made up of bickerings, jealousies, devilries, 
spites, miseries, tragedies, bloodthirstiness, and blood- 
guiltiness ; the fear of the mother for her child ; the 
rivalry of a new wife made intense by the birth of 
a new prince ; the vigilance of mutes, eunuchs, and 
spies ; and the insatiate sensuaUty of the Moorish 



302 Diabolism of the Harem. 

tigers. No large range of fancy is needed to picture 
these, as the real 'tales of the Alhambra.' 

From one of the towers — the bell tower — in looking 
down upon the court below, I saw many galley-slaves 
enjoying themselves in their prison. I am told that 
they are here for ten years each, and that the life they 
live is rather pleasant ; so much so, that some try to 
return as soon as they get out! But their life is in- 
expressible contentment compared to the ' nuptial joy ' 
of the beauties of the harem ! It is especially happy 
in the comparison, if those beauties happened to be what 
they so often were. Christian maidens of rare culture 
and loveliness, who were subjected to a life worse than 
slavery or death. When the tourist wanders through 
the Alhambra courts, admires its Arabesques and foun- 
tains, pillars and turrets, halls and towers — all the fairy 
architecture of this refined place and race^ — he must 
not forget to be disenchanted in one respect. If I had 
the humorous skill of Artemus Ward among the 
Mormons, I might draw aside the veil from this 
grossly sensuous Moorish race, and its elegant and 
effeminate temples of lust ; and, if in no other way, 
illustrate its Diabolism. As it is, the only illustration 
I can furnish is that in the engraving of the ' Moorish 
door of the Alhambra.' It will enable the reader to 
judge of the exquisite elegance of the architecture, 
within whose walls and halls was concealed the highest 
refinement of sensuaHty. 




yVloORISH poOR IN y*tLHAMBRA. 



( 303 ) 




CHAPTER XVII. 

FROM GRENADA TO MALAGA — THROUGH THE 
SIERRAS — ARCADIA, 

'Jewel of the mountain ring, 
City of perpetual spring, 
City that the sea still kisses. 
Where the wind is dowered with kisses , 
From the starry jasmine flowers, 
And the thousand orange bowers.' 

N the route from Valencia to Madrid, I lost 
my companion, Dr. Bennet. He left us to 
go to the south. We saw him for only 
an hour afterwards, amidst the Alhambra 
courts. Having made the circuit of Andalusia, we 
will soon return to Madrid. Then and there, under 
the tuition of fresh events, and with more experience 
of Spanish life and character, I will try and make out a 
diagnosis of the condition of the Spanish body politic. 
Meanwhile will you allow me to show how easy it 
is to go from Grenada to Malaga, and how easy it is 
to go out of the latter place, under the impulsion of 
military displays ? 

W^e leave Grenada in the cars, and without much 
deflection from a right hne west, burst through the 
mountains, after crossing the splendid Vega. We 
go in a direction, as if we were going direct to Cadiz 
or Gibraltar. We leave the superb towers where Irving 
lived and dreamed ; where Boabdil held high carnival 
with wives and eunuchs after the Moslem method ; 
where Isabella the Catholic held high mass ; we leave 
behind us the Pinos bridge, from which Columbus re- 



304 The Vine-clad Mountains around Malaga. 

turned at the request of Isabella, to hear that Spain 
would help him in his designs on a new world ; we 
leave the mountains of Elvira, around whose feet the 
Moors and Spaniards fought for seven hundred years ; 
we leave the superb sepulchres of Spanish and Moorish 
royalty and priesthood, and in two hours we are at 
Loja, and in ten minutes after, in the coupe of a 
diligence. We try to recall the scattered and splen- 
did memories which make this land of Grenada so 
romantic. But who can indulge in such luxuries of 
association when our driver gallops his mules, with 
their jmgle of bells and with terrific outcries through 
town and country, through narrow streets and up 
perilous mountain roads ? Who can follow the laby- 
rinths of historical lore, when he is winding with easy 
grace and safety up and down splendid mountain 
roads ? But all this has been told by a hundred tourists 
in their experiences of the Continental diligence. 

I have never read, however, a description of what I 
saw before entering Malaga. Indeed, I despair of con- 
veying the impression I received. It was not the wild 
mountain barrier which shelters Malaga to the north- 
east. Those mountains so grand and lofty, beyond and 
above which tower the Sierra Nevadas, ever in view to 
the south of Grenada, and even at Seville ever in view, 
would astonish of themselves; but a description of moun- 
tain scenery loses its charm by oft-repetition. The route 
lifts us nearly as high as these snow mountains. The 
air is cool, and we ' wrap the drapery ' of our mantles 
about us, and gaze out upon the mountains below us 
in wonder, love, and praise. The blue sea appears 
between the mountains far below. Here is the charm ! 
These mountains for twenty miles around Malaga, are 
covered with — snow? No. With olives ? No. With 
dust, ashes, rocks, shrubs ? No, only with grape-vines. 
The sides — all sides — from the bottom of the valleys to 



Grape Ctdhire. 305 



the summits, are grape-covered. These vines look 
fresh and advanced. The sides of the mountains are 
ridged by the rains, and as far as you can see, — moun- 
tain below and below mountain — mountains in groups 
and ranges — the hills on mountains turning to and 
from the sun — are all covered with grapes ! grapes ! 
grapes ! Only one little patch of olives is seen far off; 
all the rest of the vegetable life is — the grape — grape 
— grape. Not a blade of grass, or a fibre of moss 
or lichen ; the grapes monopolize the reddish soil, 
and capture every fugitive rain drop. The soil, such 
as it is, is worked to an extreme nicety of cultivation. 
The vines are stubby and set in regular holes, some 
five feet apart. As far as the eye can pierce, from this 
lofty perch, the red sides of the mountains are specked 
with the emerald vines. If you would estimate the 
vines, or the acres of them even, go to the commercial 
statistics of Malaga, and see what a yield is here. 

Not that all Malaga wine is from grapes here grown 
and pressed. No, nearly all the wines of commerce 
from here and elsewhere are fabricated. The greater 
part of the wines of Spain and France are indebted to 
the potato for their fine spirit and fruity life. 

I am not skilled in grape culture ; and cannot tech- 
nically testify to the modes employed around Malaga. 
Nor can I affirm that any of the rules applicable to the 
mountains here, would suit various American locali- 
ties. Whether drains should be made ; how far apart 
the plants should be ; whether sub-soiling is required 
or cross ploughing ; whether the soil should be com- 
minuted and mixed by the spade ; whether it is best to 
start a vineyard with cuttings or with plants ; how to 
support the vines, — these and other matters depend so 
much on the locality ; but one thing even a tyro may 
detect, that in the fabrication, adulteration, and com- 
merce of wines, the frauds are enormous. 

X 



3o6 Tramping out Grapes. 

The potato, that simple esculent, becomes an im- 
portant agent. The potato it is that, if it does not give 
colour in the cup to the wine, at least does give the 
carbuncle to the nose. That homely Celtic diet, 
how it gushes and bubbles to the beaker's brim, 
beaded with rubies ! But how the wines, which owe 
their sparkle and spirit to it, are made before the 
homely admixture, is told so graphically by an old 
Ohio friend, William J. Flagg (who has by reason of his 
' Longworth ' connection, a right to speak), in a recent 
volume, that I am tempted to make one ' cutting ' from 
it. He says that in the wine press factory of La Tour, 
whence issues the good Medoc, men tramp out the 
grapes with their unwashed feet. Again, in the process 
of stirring up the mass during fermentation, naked 
m.en go into the wine vat, chin deep. Drink deep, 
brothers, of the flowing Bordolais and Burgundy ! 

But I do not like to disenchant people. Let us 
admire everything. It is worth while to admire in 
Andalusia, without being critical. Even the peasant 
we meet on our downward way into Malaga — or the 
muleteer in his leather leggings, or all be-buttoned with 
his cotton pantaloons, very short and loose, and velvet 
hat, and gay foulards under it — is an object of admira- 
tion. Does he not wear them all with such a grace ? 
On our downward path we are obstructed by a crowd 
of leather-legged muleteers and leather-headed team- 
sters. They stop the diligence. Is it revolution or 
brigandage ? Neither. We are told that the big cart of 
the teamsters, loaded from the bottom thereof — which 
touches the ground almost — to the round top thereof, 
has been upset and tumbled down the mountain, with 
its three mules tandem ! It is hard to believe it, as the 
team is up on the road again, and the cart put together, 
but immovable. The country people have helped to 
put the cart together and to reload. We are requested, 



Approach to Malaga. 307 

with our eight muleS;, to help in pulUng it up the 
mountain. Our mayor assents. He unhitches six 
mules, and with halloo and screech, whip and push, 
the heights are gained. 

As we approach Malaga, the mountains are dotted 
white with villas. How clean, sweet, and un-Espagnol 
they shine under the glowing sun ! Nowhere else in 
Spain have we seen so many beautified spectacles of 
country life. We still approach, on our spiral down- 
ward path, toward Malaga. The country beneath us 
looks like a raised map of a Swiss canton ! Now ! 
See! all at a glance! Malaga itself! Around it are 
greenish and golden square plots of land — evidence of 
cultivation and of crops ; the green of fields unreaped ; 
the gold of fields harvested ; and both floating in a 
flood of sunlight ! Malaga is still ten miles off; more 
than an hour. I count for a little time the peaks of 
mountains in view — before we go down into the valley. 
These peaked mountains, which look so far below, look 
very high to us, when we are below. If a grand glacier 
could be changed into rocks, and the rocks abraded 
into smoothness, then seamed by rains, then decked 
with vines, and then dotted with blanched villas — it 
would seem to be the country immediately around and 
above Malaga. But it is not round these acclivities 
we move. A valley is between them and us. We 
approach Malaga from the north-east. These physical 
phenomena are on the north-west. Between them and 
us is a river ; a river without a name, save ' River of 
the City,' and without water ; for it is a bed of gravel, used 
in dry times as a highway, and walled to protect the city 
through which it runs from sudden, devastating winter 
floods. The river is used up, to grow the grape and 
other fruits, before it reaches Malaga. It appears not 
in the stream, but in the greenery of the plain above 
the city and for many miles out. As Malaga has over 

X 2 



308 Malaga a Sa^iitary Resort. 

109,000 people, they must be fed — aye, and watered. 
Wine will not do. Raisins are not made of calcined 
rock or ashy dust. Given the water, and then the 
white grape, which the youngster of New York makes 
into wine beneath his molars, grows into translucent 
beauty ! Given the water, and hence the miracle ! 
It becomes the sweet muscatel which makes Malaga 
magnificent under her canopies of grey mountain 
and cerulean heaven ! It is this toothsome grape, 
made without any other sugar than the sunbeam 
melts into the juicy branches, and again, without 
any aid but its own chemical qualities, made into 
the raisins which the children of many lands roll as 
sweet morsels under their tongues — it is this that 
gives to Malaga its commerce and its importance. 
If Malaga had no history, her million boxes of 
raisins per annum would sweeten her memory in the 
hearts of childhood! If neither Phoenician nor Goth; 
if neither Scipio nor Tarik, Roman nor Moor ; if 
neither the first Ferdinand of Spain nor my Bona- 
partist General of Ajaccio — Sebastiani ; if neither the 
French Loveredo nor the Spanish Espartero, had taken, 
besieged, conquered, ravaged, or held Malaga, its name 
would be glorious to the connoisseur of the ' mountain ' 
wines ; and its Lagrimas, or ruby tears, which drop 
from the unpressed grape, would fill the goblet of its 
fame! 

Aside from the vines and wines, Malaga is of in- 
terest as a sanitary resort. Bronchitis and laryngitis, 
accompanied by loss of voice, are here cured com- 
pletely, according to Dr. Francis's book. The atmo- 
sphere is dry and warm. Fires are seldom used even 
in winter. It is, therefore, the Paradise of clergymen, 
lawyers, and orators, whose throats have been damaged 
by overmuch speaking. The thermometer is rarely 
below 60 degrees. The sun is very warm during the 



Its Winter Te77tperattire and that of other Cities. 309 

daytime in summer, but the mountains of snow are 
near. The winds lose their harshness before they reach 
Malaga. The latitude is a little above 2)^ degrees. 
It is warmer than Algiers, because protected by moun- 
tains from the north, which Algiers is not. People 
live to a good old age here and hereabouts. There is 
a proverb that in this part of Andalusia ' old men of 
eighty are chickens ! ' The climate is drier than Rome 
or Naples, but not so dry as Nice and Mentone. Still 
it is free from the harsh mistral of the Riviera. It is 
warmer in the winter than Madeira by 2 degrees, than 
Rome or Pisa by 6 degrees, than Nice by 7 degrees, 
than Cadiz or Valencia by 3 degrees, than Pau by 10 
degrees, than Lisbon by 5 degrees ; and is colder in 
winter than Malta by i degree, than Cairo by 6 degrees ; 
and, like Corsica, it enjoys much equability of tempera- 
ture. Its nights are most deliciously cool. Indigo, 
cotton, and sugar grow here, and nowhere else in 
Europe. We see that the wheat fields have already 
been cut, and May is not over ! Hence I may affirm 
that ' Winter Sunbeams,' for which I have made such 
diligent search, may here be found in golden profusion. 
There is only one drawback — the river-bed is a daily 
and nightly nuisance. I cannot explain further. The 
starry jasmine and orange flowers, with which I have 
decorated the head of this chapter, are not intended 
to apply to this part of the description. The people 
of Malaga ought to be ashamed of themselves. They 
make the empty bed of the river a fllthy sty — I beg 
pardon — pigs would hardly do worse. The people 
wait for a winter freshet to wash out the river-bed into 
the tideless sea; and your readers can infer the results ! 
If I were to winter here, I should seek a home upon 
the hills or under the mountains, in sight of the sweet 
blue sea, and afar from the ill-flavoured port ! 

It was not without interest, however, apart from the 



3 1 o Rtunottrs of Insurrection, 

health, wine, and grape questions, that I regarded 
Malaga. Its fertile vega, nine miles wide and twice as 
long, was very beautiful to the eye, as its dry, bright 
air was very grateful to the lungs. Its cypresses and 
lemons, its few palms and much dust, its empty river- 
bed, by no means as fragrant as its alameda ; its cathe- 
dral, once a Moorish mosque, then a Gothic church, 
and now of mixed Corinthian, lifting its earthquake- 
shaken towers into the clear air 350 feet — all these are 
for the tourist to note ; but it was not these, or any 
of these, that stopped our diligence on the outskirts of 
the city. 

We had rumours of insurrection all the day of 
our sojourn at Malaga. The Cortes had just voted 
down, by over 100 majority, the proposition for a 
republic ! Castelar, the eminent Republican orator, 
whose words of fire had burned into the hearts of the 
Malagueros, had just made his last splendid protest 
against kings and their craft. Malaga rang with 
praises of a republic. Malaga remembered her mar- 
tyrs of last fall. Far out upon the vine-hills, we heard 
that Malaga would rise and pronouhce — nay, had risen 
and pronounced — for the republic. Hence the stop 
at the gate of the city ; hence the eager query of the 
diligence passengers: 'Is there trouble in the city?' 
' No^ ' Is any expected ? ' ' No se sabe^ with a 
shrug. ' What do you think, Senor ? ' ' Sabe Dios^ 
quien sabe ? ' God knows — who can tell ? 

We all take our places in the diligence and ramble 
into the city. Soldiers are plentiful as blackberries. 
Being a stranger, and having two ladies to convoy, 
and remembering how last fall a party of Americans 
were fired on by the government dastards here, I 
conclude, after taking advice and after sending out 
some scouts, that it was best to leave on the next 
day. My scouts reported that the city was as omi- 



'An arixioMs Night. 311 

nously still as death ; that it was generally lively, 
but not now; that the music, so often heard in 
Southern Spain, and which bears the name of Malag- 
neno,^ — that gipsy, Moorish, oriental air, that most 
lamentable of laments, — was heard no more and 
nowhere ; that the Alameda, generally crowded during 
the moonlit May evenings with bewitching Mala- 
ganenas, was now deserted, save here and there a 
suspicious group of citizens, watched covertly by 
detectives and dogged by Dogberry, — by watchmen 
with lantern hid and pike concealed ! Another report 
came that, by the morning train, flocks of people 
had left the city, citizens and strangers ; in fact, that 
the hotel, as we had occasion to notice, was empty, 
and that the cry was still 'they go;' further, that the 
republican committee had abdicated all responsibility 
if troubles came, and that proclamations inflamma- 
tory and pacificatory were on all the walls, and read 
by quiet groups ; that General Thomas, an English- 
man, or of English descent, was in command, and was 
a determined man, and had said that he would shoot 
and kill, on the first outbreak, in the most miscel- 
laneous way; and that there was an unusually deep 
feeling as a consequence of these provoking threats 
and preparations. The soldiers were kept ready, not 
alone in the city, but in the castle, for the first 
popular demonstration. My courier had been finding 
out where the American flag floated, and where our 
eagle perched, so that we might, in case of danger, 
retreat under their ample fold and wing. 

We prepared to go to bed under the excitement. 
As our rooms looked out on the Alameda, there was 
little sleep done by us or any one. Far down the 
avenues could be seen stealthy groups. Now and then 
is discerned the flash of a match, to light a cigarette ; 
but no more. The moon came out, and so did the 



312 Stiicide of Count yulians Daughter. 

cavalry. Two battalions clattered and thundered over 
the city. Their iron hoofs made the fire fly from the 
pavements, and their swords gleamed and glistened in 
the moonlight. Then came the steady tramp, tramp 
of the soldiers, and then at every moment, from every 
part, the whistle of the watchman. Not a sound was 
made, save from the horses' hoofs, muffled tramps, 
and whistling signals. This went on all night ; but 
' not a gun was heard, not a funeral note.' 

Next morning everybody seemed careworn and 
sleepy. A mist obscured the mountains above. That 
old Moorish castle, near the hill of the Pharos, is 
called the Alcazaba. Its Puerta de la Cava is re- 
nowned, if not in history, in legend, as the scene of 
the suicide of Count Julian's daughter, whose woes 
brought on the Moorish invasion, and whose Iliad has 
been sung in prose by Irving. This castle is hid 
under a veil, even as Irving dropped over its rigid 
outlines the drapery of his genius. As we drive 
to the depot, we perceive hundreds of soldiers about 
the train. There comes at last a sense of relief, 
when our party is fairly in the cars and we rattle away 
from the insurrectionary town. The mist lifts a little. 
We see a streak of sunlight on a bleak, bright moun- 
tain ahead of us. We pass by gardens of immense 
fig-trees. The mountains begin to shine white. We 
are in the vine-hills again. The vines are very, very 
plentiful. The grain-crops are in. Cactus, oleander, 
orange, and pomegranate — all these appear ; but the 
grape is still king in this republican province. Bac- 
chus is here a democrat! He dominates by num- 
bers. We pass establishments where the raisins are 
prepared for the market. As three-fourths of this 
trade is with the United States, it is of interest to 
know that the muscatel and uva larga are most 
used. The grape-stalk is cut partly through, and 




^ 



a 





Irrigation Areas of Spaiii, 313 

then the grape dries under the sweetest of sun-glows. 
These make the best raisins. The common sort are 
called Lexias, and are perfected by being dipped 
in a lye made of burnt vine-tendrils. The green 
grapes, whose seeds shine through the clear skin, as 
if in emerald amber, are sent to England and America 
in jars. I do not mean that other fruits are not of 
Malaga. The finest oranges and almonds here abound, 
and as we dash off from the vicinity of this fruit- 
abounding place, we have a chance to observe why 
they so abound. ( It is the same story I told you of 
/Alicante, Valencia, and Murcia. It is the same story 
I which made Milianah another Damascus, and Grenada 
\ peerless, — with the rarest elegance of cultivation — it 
\ is irrigation. ' Water is the Wahan of Creation,' saith 
the Buddhist. 

I I said much about this element of Spanish wealth, 
tut did not give you the facts and foundation of the 
^stem. Having now seen under my own eyes the 
p|incipal irrigation works of Spain, I feel more com- 
petent to write about it. In Valencia, from the 
rii^ers Turia and Jucar, there are 56,810 acres under 
iitigation ; in Murcia, from the Segura, 25,915; at 
Orihuela, from the Segura, 50,318; at Elche (place of 
p&umy palms),. 40,010; Alicante, 9139; at Granada, 
|rom the Darro and Genii, 46,930 acres. These works, 
jtvhose results at least I have witnessed, comprise nearly 
/one-half of the irrigation area of Spain. The total 
quantity of irrigated land is 374,269 acres. The best 
works are those of Valencia, Murcia, and Granada. 
They are the oldest, being made by the Moors about 
the year 800. On the Spanish conquest and division 
of land, the rules of the Saracens about water were re- 
established. Some of these works are made of masonry, 
in which rain is collected, as at Alicante. The principal 
rivers of Spain, like the Tagus and Guadalquivir, run 



3 1 4 Vahi.es of Irrigated and Dry Groitnd. 

/to the sea with but little utility as motive or creative 
power. But almost anything, and in any quantity, of 
■ vegetable beauty and utility can be raised in Spain with 
this water power. Peppers and peaches, apricots and 
apples, olives and oranges, sugar and citron, cotton 
I and corn, potatoes and pears ; and never less than two 
i crops a year, and sometimes four ! Of course, irriga- 
I tion enhances the value of the land. In Castellonj 

dgood irrigated ground is $700 per acre, dry ground I 
only $50. In Murcia $3000 per acre is given for the 
I good ground there irrigated. In Valencia it averages 
I from $1000 to $2000 per acre. Irrigation adds 1200 
er cent, to the valuation of the land. The water is 
an article of lease, trade, sale, auction, for it is as indis- 
pensable as the land. It is the same as on the Riviera. 
Around Cannes, Nice, and Mentone the water is sold 
by the cubic foot, or per second ! The owner of a 
rivulet is rich. There is no poetry in calling the moun- 
tain streams silvery. It is fact. On some of the 
government works, they let out the water per cubic 
foot per annum, as boards of public works in America 
do for milling purposes. The same is done at the foot 
of the Alps in Italy. 

Of course, there must be many difficulties in the 
division of the water among claimants. Water is 
mobile. It is a leveller, and gets through all the 
smallest crevices to its position. It is a very litigious 
element— jealous of its ancient and natural rights. 
The Moors used to have courts for water cases. 
These met and yet meet in some portions of Spain 
— to hear and decide complaints in the olden way and 
in the open air. Pedro has done, for example, as 
many an English or American miller, according 
to the law-books, has done — practised hydraulics on 
the sly— 2.^. dammed up a few inches, or undammed 
a few, for a little decrease of his neighbour's water 



The Country from Malaga to Cordova. 315 



power and a little increase of his own. Good ! But 
Pedro's neighbour grows wroth. He goes to the court, 
and there the dusty titles from the dusky Moorish days 
are examined, and the case decided, when the damming / 
and undamming are supposed to be suspended ; sup- / 
posed I say. 

The country we pass through from Malaga to Cor- 
dova, first in a westerly and then in a northerly direction, 
is well worth crossing the Atlantic to see. It is interest- 
ing, not alone for its illustration of the power of water 
and vegetation, but for the railroad views in the very 
midst, or heart, or innermost core of the immense 
Sierras which the road penetrates. The mountains 
ever hover on the horizon's edge as we travel west, 
much as we saw them at Alicante, parched, white, and 
rugged ; but the valleys smile with fields and fruitage, 
and the streams Vv^hich made them smile, are fringed 
with the same vegetation that we saw in Algiers. In- 
deed, the flora here is all African. The people have the 
Moorish tastes, but they have besides a dash of chival- 
ric romance. The red kirtles of the women are pic- 
turesque. Here and there we see quite a tableau. 
Yonder, under a tamarisk, upon the bank of a stream, 
dignified with aloes, and red with oleanders (for they 
are in full blaze here and now), is a group of peasants. 
They are tending their cattle and sheep. A small 
boy is tinkling his guitar, while the bells of the anim.als 
in response make the scene alluring enough to be 
Arcadian. We observe some Indian corn, which 
makes an American feel at home ; then, at Alora and 
other places, — country seats for Malaga merchants, — 
we perceive palms, and oranges, and pomegranates, 
and apricots, and cypresses, and Swiss cottages. These 
are all made by irrigation ; cottages and all ! How 
deftly the water is turned in and on. The peasants 
have here short, white trowsers (legs half bare), which 



3 1 6 A rcadia and L ocomotives. 

are very loose and split up. These pantaloons have 
furnished the Spanish student witVi a symbol of his — 
purse. Here we see a shepherd with a white crook. 
He looks patriarchal. He is watching his sheep, and 
his donkey is watching him ! Now that is Arcadian ! 
As we think of it, he swings his pastoral emblem in a 
jolly way at the engineer of the locomotive. A donkey 
in Arcadia is tolerable ; but a locomotive is not to be 
endured. It disenchants us of Sylvanus and Faunus. 
It gives a new ' colour ' to Pan's pipe. 

As we approach the mountains, we wonder how 
we are to get through, the red rocks look so 
formidable ! Soon we are in a gorge, then a tunnel, 
and then dash vv^e go into the cool air and thick black- 
ness, under a mountain several thousand feet high! 
Then out of the tunnel, and lo ! we stretch our necks 
out and look up ! There is seen only a little patch of 
blue, which breaks down from the heavens, struggling 
through craggy peaks and ragged rocks ! The moun- 
tains here are honey-combed and water-worn, as in 
Corsica. They are iron-painted. Some have the form 
of palisades ; some have every phantasy of shape. It 
seems as if the engineer who laid out this route had 
begun at the nadir and had worked up toward the zenith, 
and that we were dropped somehow into the midst of 
wonderful defiles and necromantic halls, surrounded by 
spires and walls of illimitable height and grotesque for- 
mation. 

It was worth risking an insurrection, to see these 
marvellous mountains, and how the art and science 
of man have overcome, or rather tmder-comt them ! 
But for this tunnelling, no being — not even the goat 
or chamois — could ever have got into, or got out of 
these profound depths in the innermost penetralia of 
these natural temples ! Science has lifted the rocky 
veil ; the adytum has been pierced ! 




O 



Glories of Andalusia. 317 

As we proceed, we also ascend. The vegetation 
changes. From gardens to rocks ; from the palm, 
whose fruit are luxuries, to the scrubby palm of 
Africa, and the prickly broom, whose yellow flower so 
often appeared in Algiers, until at last we reach Teba. 
There the French Empress has a splendid estate. It 
is not in view; no matter. The road rises still. 
We are on terraces, and above us are mountains, them- 
selves terraces. Then long reaches of level plain appear 
between the mountains. And as we go up and on, all 
at once we feel that we have passed the grand sierra 
which hugs the Mediterranean coast from Gibraltar to 
Almeria, that we are out on the open plain of Anda- 
lusia, whose plateau is swept by the breezes from the 
Atlantic without hindrance of mountain ; that we are 
on a wide, high prairie, whose northern bound is the 
Sierra Morena, defending it from the blast ; near whose 
feet is the Athens of the dark ages, Cordova; down 
whose gentle western slope the Guadalquiver (pro- 
nounced Waddle-kiv-eer)^ red with the fresh mountain 
mould, runs to commercial, historic Cadiz, and past thy 
stately towers, O glorious, courtly Seville ! Here, then, 
we have Andalusia — the Tarshish of the Jew and the 
Paradise of the Moor ! Here, again, came the Augustan 
era of literature to the turbaned people, and a golden 
age of chivalry, inspired by a perpetual religious war- 
fare ! Here is the land of the bandit, contrabandist, the 
dancer, the bull-hghter, and the muleteer. Here is 
the land of song and story about love and war. Here 
were the great captains ; nay, as I live, here and now, 
from this depot of Montillo, I see the town where the 
' Great Captain' Cordova himself was born. Mantillo, 
whose wines are like liquid amber, with no admixture 
of Celtic esculent — sipped by connoisseurs the world 
around — here, indeed, is its romantic tower and castle, 
protecting its town of 15,000, whose fame is preserved 



3 1 8 ' God works for us' 

more by the fragrance of its liquid amber than by the 
glory of its great soldier. 

I know that half of Andalusia is in a state of nature ; 
its soil so fertile and its sun so warm ; its waters so 
skilfully trained to work, and its coasts so grand in 
harbour and beauty. Yet half the la"hd is given over 
to the palmetto, the oleander, the lentisk, and licorice. 
Its aromatic shrubbery may well grow where the rude 
old Egyptian plough does its imperfect labour. The 
Moorish pump, with its wheel of jars, turned by 
donkey or mule, does the work in a day which an 
American pump would do in an hour ! But no ! 
Twang your guitar, happy Andalusian ! On with the 
festive dance, Majo of Cordova ! Snap your castanet, 
dark-eyed daughter of Seville ! Let Love's rebeck 
resound! Let Fandango hold high festival! What 
have hydraulic olive-presses, centrifugal pumps, and 
threshing-machines to do with thee ? You repeat to- 
day, in habit and custom, what your Moorish prede- 
cessors repeated in words more than deeds : ' Ojala ! ' 
'God works for us !' Let us be resigned! 

How we reached Cordova ; what we saw at Seville ; 
and what between these ancient homes of Oriental 
power and Spanish grandeur, and these present abodes 
of luxury and beauty, may be reserved for another 
chapter. We certainly have ceased to wonder at 
Irving's remark that Andalusia is a garden, while 
Mancha is a desert. Its undulating hills, grain-covered, 
remind us of Ohio ; its treeless plains remind us of 
Illinois ; its flora of Algiers ; its fountains of the 
Riviera; but its distant castellated mountains, its 
romantic, towered towns, its alhambras and alcazars, 
its vine-covered acclivities and palm-decked villas, 
its donkeys, its fruits, its marbles, its costumes, its 
songs, its dances, and its Orientalism, are all its 
own ! 



General Survey of Spain. 3 1 9 

Having found a place of repose, with all the ' Sun- 
beams ' required for tonic and illumination, I should 
hke to be free to take a glance all around ! I have 
traversed the Provinces of Madrid, Mancha, Jaen, 
Cordova, Grenada, Malaga, and Seville ; besides 
sojourning in other cities on the way. I have already 
written about Murcia, Alicante, and Valencia. While 
allowing much for the historical interest and present 
attractions of Northern Spain which I have not seen, 
especially at Burgos, the capital of Castile ; Barcelona, 
the capital of Catalonia; and Saragossa, the capital of 
Arragon — I think that I have already seen the best 
of Spain. I can form a fair idea of its soil, climate, 
productions, people, and geography. We have been in 
no hurry through Spain. Notwithstanding that the 
political entanglement still continues, and that the chair 
of state is hovering, like the coffin of Mahomet, between 
heaven and earth — between republicanism and royalty 
— that is, it is about to take the form of a Serrano- 
Prim-Regency — ^we have experienced no difficulties. 

One reason why I have lingered in Spain, into the 
summer, is that it is the pleasantest country to be in ; 
I mean for climate and temperature. We have not as 
yet had a hot, or even a w^arm day. Even at Malaga, 
which is on the level of the sea, there was a gratefully 
cool breeze at evening, which made the climate more 
agreeable than some other experiences. Spain, along 
its Mediterranean coast-line, from Barcelona to Cadiz, 
is tonical and delightful in its climate. Murcia and 
Malaga are unparalleled for dry, exhilarating air. Spain, 
in the interior, is a lofty plateau. It averages over 
two thousand feet above the sea. It is treeless and in 
summer burnt. In winter it is cold and dreary, but 
as we have found, in spring, and so far, one day into 
summer, it is cool and bracing. Spain is the land in 
which to be re-oxygenated. Everywhere the water is 



320 Spanish Climate and IntellectMal Influences, 

good ; better for the tourist — as a matter of health — 
than the wines. The peptic effects of the climate I 
have already referred to. The natives dip their bread 
in oil ; or, making holes in the loaf, fill and soak it 
with oil. Then they swallow with a relish, and I hope, 
digest it. Spain is free from malaria, except in the 
rice lands about Valencia. In ' Winter Sunbeams,' of 
which I have been in search, and whose glow stimu- 
lates, southern Spain is rich. I do not mean to dis- 
praise Italy or disparage France. The sierras of Spain 
do the work of protection from the Northern ' eager, 
nipping airs,' which the Alps and Apennines do for 
the Riviera. The peninsular configuration of Spain, 
with its mountains running east and west, shelters the 
shores. 

There are some most select and delightful influences 
in Spain — I call them intellectual and moral tonics. 
I wish I could enumerate them all, so as to impress 
the reader as I have been impressed, and so as to dis- 
possess him of many prejudices which I once had. 
There is the skyey influence, which has balm in its air 
and its light. There are the associations of the sea- 
coast and the country. There is the grand architecture 
and historic renown of the Spanish cities — the fossils 
and remains of antique civiHsations — Phoenician, 
Roman, Gothic, and Moorish. There are the master- 
pieces of art — superior art — art of the time of 
Charles V. and of Leo X. ; the genius of Murillo 
and Velasquez — illustrated in the Museum and the 
Cathedral. There are to be found here the grandest 
Gothic minsters, enshrining the most exquisite relics 
of religion as well as those of the painter and sculptor 
—^ minsters where God is worshipped with a state so 
solemn and a fear so awful that His presence cannot 
but hallow the shrines. Then, again, here are the 
influences of the authors — Cervantes at the head of 



Safety of travelling in Spain. 321 

the roll — ^who have peopled Spain with their personcB 
and poetry. All these influences make Spain a museum, 
a library, an asylum, a retreat, delightful for invalid 
or misanthrope, for traveller or student, for artist or 
author, for old men or maidens ! 

But why are there so few who travel hither and 
here ? The Englishman and American rush over 
Europe and omit Spain. The reason for this omission 
some years ago is explicable and apparent. Then 
Spain had no railroads, and her other roads were 
unsafe. To cross the Pyrenees then, was to go out of 
Europe. It was to eat nothing but garlic* It was to 
leave the land of cookery and France. ' God sends 
Spain meat, but the devil cooks it,' said the French. 
The snobbish Englishman says : ' Cawn't get the 
" Times " there, ye know, nor Ba-asses pale ale, ye 
know ! Nothing but a bloody bull fight in the cities, 
and howwid, wascally wobbers in the country, ye 
know.' An American abroad is either a noodle, a 
doodle, a scholar, or a business man. The two former 
scarcely ever go to Spain. The American scholar has 
made Spain glorious in English literature ; and the 
business man goes thither either for wines and raisins, 
or to consult about — Cuba ! 

The mountains of ashy hue and the valleys of 
perennial green, the wide prairie and the rugged rocks, 
the dash out of the vineyards of Malaga into the lovely 
vega of Grenada, or from the glorious Alcazar of 
Seville to the many-pillared mosque of Cordova, from 
the Elysium of Valencia to the Sahara of Mancha ; 
all these, a quarter of a century ago, had no attraction, 
and, as yet, have but little charm for the dilettante 
tourist. Not a few, however, are prevented from 
travelling in Spain by groundless fears of poUtical dis- 
turbances. The land is volcanic in political as in other 
respects. Our minister testifies to hundreds of letters, 

Y 



322 Spanish Railways^ Hotels^ and Currency, 

as to whether it is safe to venture this spring and 
summer into Spain. He answers, as I do, ' Yes ! ' No 
safer place. If there be danger, it is sure to be sounded 
beforehand. The Spanish are very pronounced. They 
are incarnate pronunciamentos dressed in soldier clothes, 
and a trumpet is always noising their political vicissi- 
tudes. I have been most agreeably disappointed at the 
perfect order, safety, and pleasure of Spanish travelling. 
Whether by diligence, rail, or carriage, it is the same. 
The worst that can be said is that the butter is bad. 
My worst profanity on its appearance has been : ' Oh ! 
Lard ! Oh ! Lard ! ' But you soon become used to 
it, or to its absence. The trouble of travelling in 
Spain has been much lessened, and the pleasure much 
enhanced, since the revolution of last autumn. There 
are now no octroi dues. Figuerola and Serrano have 
effected this, along with other free-trade reforms. Your 
trunks are not opened at the gates of cities. The rail- 
road people are civil. The railroads are generally as 
fast, and as comfortable and safe, as those of America. 
The trains wait longer at the stations, but the cars are 
excellent and comfortable. The inns — whether you 
call them fondas and posadas, or ventas — might be 
bettered ; but they form no objection to the travelling 
here. You have all the comforts you require, and 
more than you expect. You have always good fruit, 
such as raisins, oranges, and apricots. The wines are 
of all qualities, and you may select. The Swiss are 
opening hotels in the principal places. One Swiss 
company has several hotels. This arrangement I 
found convenient ; for when I grew short of funds, or 
negligent in my exchequer, I paid my bills, for ex- 
ample, for Seville and Cordova, at — Madrid! The 
money is easily understood, as the old Spanish milled 
dollar is the real standard. Generally, the people 
count in reals ; one real being over four cents, or 



Character of Spanish troops. 323 

about four reals to a franc. The peseta — a common 
silver coin — is four reals. It resembles the old twenty- 
cent piece which used to be seen in America, and 
which used to slide in for a smooth ' quarter of a 
dollar.' It is a little smaller than the quarter, and 
without the pillars of Hercules — those grand symbols 
of ancient Iberian power ! The cent is called a quarto, 
and like its double — ' dos quartos ' — it is copper. The 
gold coinage is like the American, or as ours used to 
be in the good old days. There is a one-hundred-real 
piece, equal to five dollars ; about the English sovereign. 
It would not be hard to change the Spanish coinage 
into the decimal system. Already the French decimal 
has been introduced for measures. The old yard, 
league, and quart are not altogether out of vogue 
with the people or peasantry, but, under official rule 
and proclamation, they are fast becoming obsolete. 

It is the custom of Englishmen, especially, and 
Americans too, to underrate Spain, and depreciate 
the Spanish people. Englishmen say that they — with 
the Duke — won all the battles here against the French, 
and that the Spaniards dodged the dangers and ran. I 
am not going to say that the Spaniards by their own 
unaided force, at that epoch, did full justice to their 
former prowess and fame. But I do say, from ob- 
servation of French, German, Italian, and other troops, 
and by comparison with the Spanish, that I do not 
see any difference, in either appearance or discipline, 
to the disadvantage of the Spanish. We are apt to 
take as a standard the officers, grandees, or 6lite of a 
people. As to Spain, I admit that there does seem 
to be a degeneracy among the better (?) classes. 
Compared to the portraits and pictures I see — and 
not relying on the magniloquent histories I read — 
there is an enormous falling offi The Cids and 
'Great Captains' are now rarce aves. But in the 

Y 2 



324 Santi Ponce on the site of the ancient Italica. 

living towns of Spain — on the sea coast, as at Cadiz, 
Malaga, Carthagena, Valencia, and Barcelona; or, in 
such places as Seville and Madrid — the people look 
and act equal to any work in the field, whether with 
a hoe or with a bayonet ! If there transpires here 
what may happen on the election of the king — i.e, a 
civil war — you will see that Andalusia, from Grenada 
to Malaga, will be foremost in the fight for self- 
government without a king. All the peasants and 
tradespeople whom I have met are republicans. They 
understand what that means too. A rough peasant 
whom I met in the little town of Santi Ponce, near 
Seville, told me that all his townspeople were repub- 
licans ; that they contemptuously sent about his busi- 
ness the day before a fellow who came there to peddle 
monarchical newspapers ; and that they read the re- 
publican papers and understood their own affairs. 
The free speech, free education, and free press of Spain 
have made a wonderful revolution. Everywhere the 
boys in the cities, or rather the blind men and poor 
women, especially at Malaga, Madrid, and Seville, are 
crying their papers, just as if they were in London or 
New York. But I do not wish to vaticinate about 
politics, at least not till I get to Madrid, where the 
cauldron is boiling and bubbling, and where Serrano 
as Regent is soon to be installed. 

But it is a little interesting, if not significant, that in 
the village of Santi Ponce — occupying the site of the 
magnificent city of Italica, whose ruins I will hereafter 
describe — the city where Trajan, Adrian, and Theo- 
dosius were born — founded by Scipio Africanus for 
his veterans ; a city once adorned with sumptuous 
edifices, and which was so fond of imperialism and 
Rome that it sought to lose its character of a free 
municipium by becoming a Roman colonia, — it is 
not a Httle significant that the people here are all 



Prevalence of Reptcblicanism. 325 

republicans ! A bright-eyed girl, of one of the huts 
where we bought some old Roman coins and mosaics, 
sang a song in a jolly way to us, to show us the feeling 
of her vicinage, the burden of which was : — ' The 
republic we seek we will have. If they don't like it, 
they may swallow it ! ' That is a free but correct 
translation, though I am not sure of my Spanish. 



(3^6 ) 




CHAPTER XVIII. 

SUMMER IN SPAIN. SEVILLE, SCENES, SOUNDS, 
AND SENTIMENTS, 

* Fair is proud Seville ! Let her country boast 
Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days. 

Beneath soft eve's consenting star 
Fandango twirls his jocund castanet.' — Byron. 

HIS is the first day of summer! This 
spring, however, has had no chill of winter. 
It lingers into summer, and preserves its 
vernal charms. Like a coy maiden — ' only 
not divine ' — spring, by her backward ways, not only 
attracts, but in such a way as to repel from any 
exertion, especially that of writing. We rather live 
and breathe than work and move. It is the very 
season of Flora yet, and in her own primal beauty and 
favoured clime. 

I knew, by reading and repute, of the heat of the 
summer sun of Spain. The dog days are as fierce as the 
fabled hounds which ate their keeper. No drinking of 
water, no screening of head and eye with umbrella or 
green glasses, no awnings in city or shades in country, 
no stone wall or enormous head gear, can temper the 
heats of Spanish midsummer. The sun roasts, fries, and 
bakes you, as well as the already calcined soil. Was it 
not Sancho who put the curds into the Don's helmet ? 
It must have been in summer, for they melted so 
fluently that the Don began to think that his brains 
were running. The soil cracks and gapes all athirst. 
The rivers have died out, for want of water. The 



y 




^Seville yENDORA. 



The nomlnis umbra of TarskisL 327 



grass, where irrigation is not, is as shrivelled as an old 
woman's hand after a hard day's washing, and as brown 
as sienna. The olive turns pale with heat and dust. 
The donkeys, almost alone of the animals, imperturbably 
plod their meek and weary way. The heated traveller 
rushes into every venta, and the porous earthen re- 
frigerator is emptied to cool his parched tongue. The 
proverb has it that the sun is the cloak of the poor : 
' Es el sol la capa de los pobres^ I think that proverb 
was made for winter, and is no good proverb. Pro- 
verbs should be applicable to all time and seasons. 
I, therefore, contest it, on the same principle that I 
would have contested Sir Roger de Coverley's will. 
He made the will in winter, and left all his servants 
(bless him!) greatcoats; but he died (alas !) in sum- 
mer, when greatcoats were useless ! The Spaniard 
boasts, not only that the first language was his, but 
that the sun first shone over this old capital of Toledo ! 
I will not contest that, but simply say that not as yet 
has the sun, with Spanish courtesy, taken oif his som- 
brero. We, therefore, linger. When Apollo begins 
to shoot his arrows, we shall retreat. 

The reader may find us following the meanderings 
of the Guadalquivir, and about, like Kalif Walid, or 
San Ferdinand, to capture Seville. In order to reach 
Seville from Malaga by cars, we had to go above one 
hundred miles north to Cordova, and thence as far 
south-west to Seville. We have now accomplished the 
sight of both those ancient capitals. With Jaen and 
Grenada they make up the four kingdoms known as 
Andalusia, so sedulously hidden by the crafty Phoeni- 
cian merchants under the (still) inexplicable nominis 
7imbra of Tarshish, so tenaciously held by the Moors, 
and so splendidly glorified by Spanish poetry and 
romance with all the hues of the Orient! This is 
Andalusia! I was disappointed in Jaen and Cordova, 



328 . Railways and Police Soldiers, 

but not in Grenada or Seville. Of Grenada I had 
read much, in Irving and elsewhere. My impressions 
had become indelibly photographed. Of Seville I had 
formed, if I may thus express it, a sensuous ideal ! It 
was to me the gorgeous East and the fruitful South. 
It was the epitome of Asia and Africa. Here, too, was 
to be found the severe taste of the Goth, with the 
elegant refinement of the Moor and the haughty 
grandeur of the Spaniard. Here were all the affluence 
of nature and the skill of art. I was not disappointed. 
But how can I reproduce on paper my impressions — 
and under circumstances that almost forbid the group- 
ing of incidents and thoughts ; how cast a reminiscence 
even of a week on these absorbing scenes. 

Perhaps the best order is chronological, and the best 
narrative is the simplest. On the railway we had the 
courtesy extended to us of seats in the saloon of a 
reserved car. This was done by the kindness of the 
engineer and inspector of the roads in Andalusia. He 
was a cultivated and communicative man. He had 
relatives in Malaga whom we knew. To them we 
were primarily indebted for this valued courtesy. We 
learned everything from him about railroads and 
politics. The railroads of Spain do not pay well. The 
charges are high, the running is slow ; but the travel 
is safe. You never have an apprehension about danger 
of life or limb. There has been, even as recently as 
last autumn, apprehension from another source. You 
will always see most respectably dressed police soldiers 
about the stations. They are uniformed in cocked 
hats and Quaker-cut coats, white pants and high 
boots, looking like General Washington as a gen- 
darme. They are observable at all the depots and 
along all the routes in Spain, because, some time 
ago, on some even of these main thoroughfares, 
there were brigands. Yes, indeed. They attacked 



The Duke of Montpeiisier, 329 

the cars here even this winter. They do not throw the 
cars off the track. They are not diaboHcal enough 
for that. Even they are too chivalric and Andahi- 
sian for that. But they move down on a depot, sahite 
and present arms pohtely to the conductors, firemen, 
and engineers, and, courteously leaving the passengers 
intact, proceed to examine the freight, bills, and cars, 
and appropriate what may strike their fancy as useful. 
Like the robbers described by M. Hue, in his book on 
Thibet, they are the A^ery pink of verbal urbanity and 
predatory politeness. You remember how the Thibetan 
brigand procured— oh, call it not ' stole ' — a horse and 
cloak. ' Venerable elder brother,' said he to the elderly 
chevalier, ' I am fatigued and footsore with my journey ; 
wilt thou have the happiness to dismount ? ' or, ' The 
sun is hot, very hot ; your cloak, my honoured lord. 
Is it not too warm for thee and the season ? ' Thus 
the Andalusian robber. 

Our friend, the inspector of railroads, said that the 
brigandage here is nearly obsolete ; but if there be a 
civil war, it will arise again. ' Will there be a civil 
war ? ' we inquire. ' No, not yet. If no outbreak 
yesterday in Cadiz or Malaga, when the vote for 
monarchy was carried in the Cortes, then it will not 
come, at least not yet.' ' When then ? ' ' When the 
time comes for choosing the king. Just now, the 
proposition for a regency, and the probability that one 
of the popular leaders of the revolution will be regent, 
the full powers of a republican president being given 
to him as regent by the Constitution, take away the 
immediate motive for a republican uprising.' 'Who 
is likely to be king ? ' I ask. ' We have one candidate 
in Seville, where lives the Duke of Montpensier. He 
is now in Lisbon. He has money. His money made 
the revolution. He has suffered for the cause, and was 
exiled by the Queen.' Our friend, I thought, expected 



33 o Railroads and Free Trade, 



the Duke to obtain the crown. ' Then,' he continued, 
' there is the ex-Prince of the Asturias — Isabella's son 
and heir ; but he stands little chance just now. Some 
think General Prim desires it, and full a half-dozen 
others.' ' What of Serrano ? ' I inquired. ' He is very- 
persuasive and popular.' ' What of Montpensier ? ' 
' He has shown himself too much of a poltroon. The 
people like pluck.' 'What sort of a statesman is 
Figuerola, the Finance Minister ? ' ' Ah ! he has a 
splendid intellect, is a thorough theorist, and yet is 
a practical reformer. He has taken office to carry out 
his ideas. He believes, as " New Spain " does, in com- 
mercial freedom and unrestricted intercourse. He has 
a difficult problem, as he has cut off many sources of 
revenue, and, with all his economies, he is in a de- 
ficiency. He is lampooned and abused, and has a hard 
time, especially with Catalonia, Prim's province, where 
there is so much done in manufactures. There the 
people are protectionists. General Prim has en- 
couraged them to cry down free trade ; but being 
republicans, although they want to have all people 
tributary to them by buying their stuffs in Barce- 
lona, they will be likely to rebel.' I learned from 
my companion that he favoured free intercourse. 
Said he : ' What is the use of my business—railroad- 
ing — if we do not trade with other nations ? These 
railroads are suffering because of bad laws ; yet they 
were made mostly by foreign capital, and to reach out 
of Spain and Madrid, on a system, to every nation. 
The English own several roads. The French have 
built many. If we do not allow French steamers to 
come into our port without burdensome tonnage and 
port dues, and French traders to cross with their goods 
over and into our borders and interior, what is the use 
of railways ? Home travel will not keep up the roads. 
We shall relapse into the old mule and donkey system.' 




Seville Cathedral. 



Seville and its Cathedral. 331 



Spain is making progress in many ways not noted by 
other nations. She will yet refute Buckle's theory of 
her improgressiveness, absurdly based on her religion, 
earthquakes, and climate. 

As we talked, the cars rolled us within view of Seville. 
We perceive it a long way off. Its many churches 
shine in tower, dome, and spire from afar. Its Giraldi, 
or cathedral tower — once that of a mosque — lifts the 
city from the plain, as St. Peter's lifts Rome from 
the Campagna. For seven hundred years this Giraldi, 
with its whirling vane — made up of a female figure 
and a flag — has played its demagogic part in the face 
of high Heaven ; for is it not changing with every 
wind, as the attra poptdaris ? Now it holds with 
Moor, now with Christian, and, regardless of all other 
influences, it has been true only in one thing, fidelity 
to its own whims. We have little time to see this 
rare tower from the cars. We find that we are in 
a lively city. Donkeys and venders of vegetables (see 
sketch) abound. The crowds at the depot literally 
beggar all description. Beggars abound ; they indicate 
a prosperous city. I do not regard beggars as a sign 
of adversity. A goodly lot of them may be found in 
desolate places, but they generally congregate where 
there is something to beg for. The Spanish language 
is such a fit vehicle for a moaning tone that the 
beggars use that intonation even when there is no 
hope of obtaining alms. They whine for the very 
'luxury of grief.' At railroad stations, I have seen 
the beggars thirty yards ofl^, peeping through the 
palings at you in the cars, and then and there, utterly 
hopeless of response, making their piteous appeals to 
the Seiiorito for ' carita.' So sad are their melancholy 
tones that you feel reproached because you do not leap 
from the cars, break through or over the fence and fill 
their outstretched palms ! When you do render them 



^^2 Gentlemen Beggars, 

a service, what an outpouring it is ? At Jaen, when our 
diUgence stopped, we had about forty round us. I 
adopted a new plan, I picked out the most conscienti- 
ous-looking person, a fine-eyed old sefiora of about 
eighty, and giving her some silver, begged her, as she 
loved her kind, to distribute it according to the needs 
of the crowd. I picked out, luckily, like a good 
drover, the leader of the herd. She started down the 
street to the fountain, the motley miserables following 
with murmurs of admiration. There, deputing one of 
the number to go and get her silver changed into 
coppers, she distributed them fairly. She came back 
to thank us for the trust we had reposed in her. At 
the Alhambra in Grenada there are some half-dozen 
gentlemen beggars of the tender years of seventy and 
upwards. These you invariably meet. They represent 
the Genius of the place. One evening while sitting all 
alone on the stone seat, near the wall, in the Plaza de los 
Algibes (or place of cisterns), one of these venerable 
local genii approached. He made his plaint. The 
nightingales were singing in the elm groves near ; the 
fountains were plashing musically around ; the dim twi- 
light, creeping up the mountain, barely revealed features 
which Murillo would have loved to paint (for who can 
paint a beggar like Murillo ?) The time and place 
were favourable to his prayer. I ransacked my pockets 
for coppers, but being out of coppers I gave him a 
peseta, a silver coin. You should have seen him ; he 
kissed the coin ; the water wells up into his eyes. 
Remember, this was the plaza of wells. Perhaps he 
had been in direst distress, who knows ? He calls over 
the list of saints and invokes them on my head. His 
fervency makes me almost join in the water business. 
He invoked the sweet Saviour to bless me, and finally 
hobbles away with streaming eyes, covering the coin 
with his labial delights ! Next morning, when I was 



/ ' Caballeros de Dios. 333 

looking out of the balcony of my Fonda, in the first 
dawn of the day, I saw below my venerable friend in a 
fight with two other elders. Their united ages were 
about two hundred and fifty years. One had knocked 
off my beggar's hat. Behind its turned-up, well worn 
velvet brim he, like others, carried his money and 
papers. The coppers rolled round in profusion. There 
was a noisy row then ; not all noise either. It was not 
appeased but increased by the appearance of a couple 
of beggar women — female Methuselahs — on the scene. 
I came to the conclusion that I had expended my 
sympathy the evening before a little prodigally ; but I 
will say this, my man fought nobly. This is the last 
battle of the Alhambra! 

But there is no need that the traveller in Spain should 
be over-troubled with beggars. If he is recognised as 
a foreigner, he is sure to be confiscated to some extent. 
Why not? If, however, he learns to say: ' Per done 
Usted por Dios, Herlnano T 'For God's sake, my 
brother, will you excuse me?' The beggar will cease 
to whine his petition. All your negatives, even if 
polyglot and multiplied, from a crisp English ' No ' — 
to a fine Castilian 'Na-d-a' — will not avail like this 
gentlemanly appeal to the chivalric mendicant. The 
philosophy of it is this : Every Spaniard is Moorish, 
Oriental, grandiose. The feudal system was never in 
Spain to degrade. Every one, the poorest, is as good 
as another. He feels it. If you respect his feelings, 
he respects you. Even the beggars consider them- 
selves ' Caballeros de Dios ' — the gentlemen of God ! 

How we escaped from the gangs at the Seville depot 
I hardly know. No one can be rough with these 
'gentlemen of God' without exposing himself to the 
charge of being vulgar. Soon we are in our hotel in 
the Plaza de Magdalena. It is situated in a square, 
surrounded by palaces and decked with orange trees. 



334 Oriental Appearance of Seville. 

Fountains are in the centre, and the ladies of Seville 
are already out and about for the twilight stroll. How 
beautiful and sweet all seems ! Our balcony — in fact, 
our rooms are a part of the balcony — overlook the 
plaza. So far as one can be in a house and out of 
doors at the same time, we are. The streets of Seville 
are narrow; though the Alamedas are wide, shaded, 
and fine. There is one peculiarity here : canvas is 
spread from roof to roof, shading the streets. I never 
saw a gayer place than Seville. The fountains seem 
to be more sparkling than anywhere else. In winter, 
it is said to be wet, though it has no snow or ice. The 
climate is dry. The houses, erected a thousand years 
ago by the Moors, have never been harmed by frost 
or much wasted by time. The city has a look of 
Bagdad or some other Eastern city. I said in a pre- 
ceding chapter that it recalled Damascus. The foun- 
tains made me think of that. The houses are made to 
suit the climate ; the narrow, winding streets, canvass- 
covered and cool ; the wide spacious houses, with their 
Moorish courts, filled with gardens of flowers and 
fountains ; the iron-grated shutterless windows, pro- 
tected by an estera or awning ; the open-worked iron- 
grate, partly gilt ; the Moorish azuelos, or clean blue 
tilings ; the stem-like pillars of the court ; the court 
itself covered in summer by an awning ; these not only 
give the idea of Oriental luxury, tell tales of the 
thousand and one nights, and lull the senses in deli- 
cious dreams, but convey the impression also of com- 
fort, strength, and seclusion. 

Byron said that Seville was famous for oranges and 
women. I might add for its river and its fountains^ 
its files and bull-fights ; its cathedral. Alcazar, and 
Alameda; its Roman ruins, its museum of Murillos, 
its palatial tobacco manufactory, its Moorish memories 
and municipal Nodus, and its former fame as a mart 



A Spanish Steamer in 1543. 335 

of commerce and colonies. Its river, the Guadal- 
quivir, is nothing of itself. I do not mean that either. 
To an American, used to grand rivers, it is not an 
imposing stream. Its waters were painted red with the 
soil, for it seemed full with a freshet. Its banks are 
low, but well walled in the city. It often overflows, 
not only over the meadows, but into the city, as high- 
water marks testify. It seems to wander about where 
it pleases. It furrows out its way through the Anda- 
lusian plains to the sea. It may leave Seville, on one 
side, som_e day, as it did the ancient Italica. Unlike 
most of the rivers of Spain, it debouches in Spain and 
not in Portugal. One great reason why Spain has 
sought to annex Portugal, and why its king may 
possibly yet unite Portugal with Spain, is that the 
Tagus, Duero, and Minho empty themselves into 
the Atlantic in other territory. It is the Mississippi 
outlet question on a small scale ; for those streams 
might under sufficient protection and commercial 
interests be made navigable. The Guadalquivir was 
navigable as far as Cordova in Roman days. We 
perceive now lying at the wharfs of Seville, opposite 
the Montpensier Palace and the Alameda — which ex- 
tends along its banks — many steamers. You may go 
to Cadiz in these steamers, and thence by the same 
line to London. The barges look very poor. They 
take you back to the early days of the canal ; for they 
are like the old canal scows. The English brought 
steamers here and they superseded the barges ; though 
it is claimed by Spanish pride that as early as 1543 a 
steamer was launched at Barcelona — the first steamer 
of the world! The Spanish officials opposed the 
matter, and it died. It was left to John Fitch and 
Robert Fulton to accomplish what Spanish ingenuity 
endeavoured, and what Spanish stupidity foiled. The 
Guadalquivir is not a poetical river to look at. 



33 6 The Guadalquivir. 

Spenser never would have called it into his fluvial 
symposium in Faerie land had he known it in reality. 
It sounds mellifluously. How its name glides glibly 
from the liquid larynx and trilling tongue ! I believe it 
means, literally, ' pellucid stream !' So might the riled 
Missouri — red and yellow with two thousand miles of 
rushing — claim the same clear, silvery significance. 
The Guadalquivir seems to echo the sense of silver 
music. But it is not only turbid but dull in its flow. 
Its way is made through those level plains which mark 
one of the seven zones from East to West which 
divide Spain. It has all the size but not the beauty 
of the Tagus, which flows in my view and with a 
lively tune too, round this ancient city of Toledo. It 
has been credited with all the poetry of the Tagus, 
which Vv^as, according to Spanish grandiloquence, 
sanded with gold and embedded in flowers, while 
along its enamelled banks the nightingale sang his 
madrigals to the blushing rose. But it has what 
the Tagus has not — a mirage ! By atmospheric re- 
fraction, glare of sun, and clouds of vapour, it seemed 
to the Moors that demons were playing tricks along 
the Guadalquivir. Armies, cities, and combats ap- 
peared and then evanished. They called it the 
Devil's Water. Ducks, cattle, donkeys, and sheep, 
here and there are found along its marshy banks, and 
some sickly inhabitants, but few villages. The Guadal- 
quivir has hardly the merit of the Tagus, which 
turns many a mill. Yet must I not forget that once 
at Seville, inland though it be, and by means of the 
Guadalquivir, a powerful guild of merchants lived. 

It was from hence, rather than from Cadiz, that the 
great discoveries of Columbus and his collaborateurs 
in navigation experienced that attention and spirit of 
adventure which made Spain, in the sixteenth century, 
so rich in silver and gold ! The loss of the Spanish 



Historical Vicissihcdes of Seville. 337 

colonies has decreased its importance. Before the time 
of the fifth Charles it was the capital of Spain ; and even 
yet, with its 125,000 people, and its civil, provincial, 
and military importance, it is not unworthy of its olden 
fame. Its ecclesiastical rule reaches across the straits 
to Ceuta, whither it has followed the Moors ; to Cadiz 
and Malaga, to Teneriife and the Canaries. In earliest 
days Seville and Cordova were rivals. The former stood 
by Caesar, and the latter by Pompey. Consequently, 
when C^sar triumphed, he stood by Seville, although 
its people were more Punic than Roman. Seville was 
even then rich and grand ; but it had a rival near, not 
Cordova, but Italica, where Roman emperors were 
born. We visited its ruins, and will presently write of 
it^ Seville met the fate of other Spanish cities. The 
Goths, who became as luxurious as those they over- 
came, made of it a capital in the sixth century. I saw 
in the Armoury at Madrid the gold crown of a 
Gothic king, found amidst the ruins of Seville. The 
Moors conquered the Goths. The same v^^ild fanaticism 
which deluged the then known world from Scinde to 
Tetuan swept over beautiful Seville. It came — 

' Like a cloud of locusts, whom the South 
Wafts from the plains of wasted Africa, 
A countless multitude they came : 
Syrian, Moor, Saracen, Greek renegade, 
Persian, Copt, and Tartar, in one band 
Of erring faith conjoined.' 

But the wave left no unplea.sing debris. On the con- 
trary, the waters receded to show the rarest city of the 
Occident. At one time tributary to Damascus, at 
another to Cordova, then under independent sheiks, 
and once a republic of Moors, it finally became the 
scene of the most romantic and fierce of the wars 
between Moor and Spaniard. It fell before St. Fer- 
dinand six hundred years ago. And to-day this marvel 

z 



338 Celebrities of Seville — Oranges and Women, 

of history — this gem worn in Phoenician, Roman, 
Gothic, Moorish, and Spanish diadems — is poetically 
heralded to the present and the future as distinguished 
for its — oranges and women ! 

If you would see both those celebrities to advantage 
drive down the banks of the river, under the shade of 
the great plane trees ; for Seville, like every Spanish 
city, has its alamedas. You may see the oranges 
peeping through the iron gratings of the Montpensier 
Palace; or, if you please, you may see their golden 
orbs glorify the old walls of the gardens of the 
Alcazar. They cannot rival those of Blidah, in Africa, 
or surpass those of Nice, though I would not dispraise 
their quality or beauty. The trees begin to bear in 
six years. The fruit grows richer for twenty years ; 
then it fails. In March the blooms come out. In 
October the oranges begin to be gilded. They are 
then picked for commerce. They never grow larger 
after they colour. In spring the aroma from the 
orange-trees makes Seville sweet-smelling to satiety. 
The Seville people will not eat oranges till March, nor 
it is said, after sunset. The vendors in the streets cry 
them almost as volubly and musically as the time- 
honoured watchmen cry the hours of the night, and 
the condition of the weather. The cry is, 'Oranges — 
sweet as honey.' 

As to the other celebrity of Seville-^I mean the 
zvomen- — has not the cry gone up for many a year, 
' mas dulces qite almidar^-^sv^ttttv than honey, or the 
honeycomb. But, as there is no chronological or 
other order for the treatment of this most exquisite of 
Seville delicacies, I will reserve it till I see them in the 
national dances — under the brilliant light, moving to 
the telegraphic click of the castanet, the twanging 
tinkle of the guitar, and the mournfully sweet roundelay 
of the gauna. Anchorite you may be; but I defy you 



The Andahisian Dances, 



339 



to go beneath the flower-decked balconies by day, and 
look up ; or by moonlight pass the iron bars through 
which the lover whispers his passion, and look in ; 
or pass down the Alameda, where the Orient-eyed 
daughters of the Seville aristocracy are rolling in their 
escutcheoned carriages, or, mounted on their magni- 
ficent Barbaries, witch the world with their graceful 
horsemanship — I defy you to see those specimens of 
the Andalusian fair without thinking of a thousand 
romances of the days of chivalry, when Christian 
knights fought for the Moslem Zaydis and Fatimas of 
the Moorish harem ; or of the times when henna- 
tinctured fingers, partly opening the lattice, peeped 
through the jalousy down upon furtive lover, or the 
gay world from which they were excluded. 

I said that the Seville women should be seen in the 
Andalusian dances. You may not see the Spanish 
dances at the theatre. The dance of the Spanish 
theatre you can as well see at Paris, London, or New 
York. Spain is still the land of the bolero and the 
fandango, and these used to be a part of every play ; 
but playing after the Spanish method is at an end. 
' Lope de Vega,' and ' Calderon ' have given way to 
Italian opera or French pieces. I would have gone 
often to the theatre if I could have seen the genuine 
tragico-comical hidalgo, in boots and bluster, spread 
his large quantity of rhetorical butter over his thin 
piece of artistic bread. Twice only to the theatre did 
I go ; once to hear ' La Belle Helene,' in Spanish, and 
the Greek heroes never had so Spanish a chance to 
swagger. Ofi^enbach would have been delighted, for 
they did it well. I also heard Tamberlik in Italian 
opera ; he is a favourite in Madrid. The audience pre- 
sented him with a silver crown, and I fancy the audi- 
ence did not pay for the crown. The bull-fight attracts 
the Spaniard almost exclusively ; yet, in Andalusia, 

Z 2 



340 A ' Funcion ' or Dancing Assemblage. 

and in Seville especially, the national, inimitable spirit- 
inspiring dance, called 'baile,' still survives without 
theatrical help. The Castanet will stir a Spania.rd even 
more quickly than a handsome toss of a horse and 
picador by a splendid bull. We longed to see this 
dance, not in theatric display, but danced by Majo 
and Maja — the exquisites of either sex, dressed in their 
native costumes. We had already seen the gipsy dances 
at Grenada. The dances of the gipsy are not unlike 
those we saw in Africa by Arab and Kabyle, and are 
not very unlike the Spanish dances we saw at Seville 
These dances and these dancers have not changed 
since the Roman days. Tambourine, guitar, and 
Castanet, were described in the classics long before 
Cervantes described their effect as like the quicksilver 
of the five senses. Hence, I conclude, from what I 
have read and seen, that all these dances issued from 
the Orient at a remote period of antiquity, and they 
are not unlike each other in kind any more than in 
origin. 

We found that an arrangement could be made for a 
f^mcion by our paying for the refreshments. {Funcion 
is the word. A funcion is the assemblage for a dance 
in Spain.) A funcion was, therefore, prepared at a 
hall in one of the narrow streets of Seville, some miles 
from our hotel. We went about ten o'clock. The 
room is full of both sexes. The men are smoking 
their cigarettes. That they do in every place. We 
are used to it. A funcion is no exceptional place, any 
more than the cars or the dining-room. The women 
are lively, and not all of them young. Quadrilles are 
under way as we enter. Between the quadrilles four 
senoritas dance the national dances. They are dressed 
in short Andalusian kirtles, pretty well flounced, very 
gay, either crimson or yellow ; bodice over the hip, and 
a head-dress or cap coquettishly covering the chignon 



Fatima. 



341 



behind, with pendants of ribbon rings. A huge gilt 
comb, stuck in jauntily on one side, ornaments the 
back hair. In one dance where there was 'a proposal' 
of marriage, the little, short, narrow, black silk man- 
tilla is added for coquettish display. These dances 
begin by a loud screaming wail of a song, of which I 
have often spoken, the verses ending rather musically, 
in a tremulous prolonged quaver of — ahs. Then the 
guitar follows ; then the dance is constant. The step 
is light, the motions are very quick, the whirl of body 
and poise of foot, the sway, the mien, the grace — these 
are indescribable. Did you ever see the little foot of 
an Andalusian dancing girl ? In Mexico ? No, sir. 
That \%dll not do. In Lima, you say? Well, Lima 
has its satin slipper neatly filled. I will not quarrel as 
to Lima. The indigenous article in its neatest, 
smallest, plumpest finesse of a foot is to be seen only 
in Andalusia or in Seville ; and that too by micros- 
copic observation. Hovr it twinkles ! how it hides . 
What a new meaning to this little dancing verse : — ■ 

' Her feet beneath her petticoat. 
Like little mice, stole in and out 

As if they feared the light : 
And oh ! to see them dance you'd say 
No sun upon an Easter day 

"Was half so fine a sight ! ' 

But time is called! Time in dancing 'is of the 
essence,' as la\\yers say ; and these petite feet keep it 
exactly. The ' limbs ' have not so much to do with 
these dances as the rest of the body ; but all is de- 
corous. There is no ill-meaning. These dances have 
a history and historians. I will not dwell on their 
pecuharities. The most graceful girl, Fatima — a 
Moorish name — was one whom I christened 'Little 
Fatty.' She could walk on her toes, as if she had no 
fleshy avoirdupois to upbear. Although she has evi- 



342 Throwing the Handkerchief. 

dently made her ivory teeth do much execution, yet 
her ivory castanets do more, notwithstanding her 
pkimpness. At this fotncion we have a band, but the 
performers also sing as they play. They make the 
building ring with their wailing songs. The dances 
conclude with the famous Ole^ a dance celebrated by 
Martial, who was a Spaniard, and by Horace also. 
The master of ceremonies has this dance performed 
immediately before us. I have a good chance, as an 
interested antiquary — antiquaries are not always averse 
to Terpsichore and her devotees — to study the spirit of 
the scene. As the senorita concludes her last step, 
hiding one foot somewhere, and with the other poising 
herself on one toe, her oleaginous rotundity in the 
air, with head back and arms waving, she astounds 
me by dashing her spotless handkerchief into my lap ! 
I had read of Seville that — 

' The men are fire — the women tow, 
Puff! comes the devil — away they go.' 

And spelling tow, toe^ I realized one half the couplet ; 
but of the handkerchief business, — I had not read of 
that in Petronius or Scaliger. This is a new stanza in 
the poetry of motion ! This is an aesthetical climax 
which requires explanation. With much embarrass- 
ment — not unpleasant — I ask my companion, 'What 
must I do ? ' ' Do ? ' ' Yes ; must I throw it back ? ' 
Here was innocence — paradisaical, before-the-fall inno- 
cence ! ' No, no ! ' ' Will she come for it ? ' ' Never ! ' 
* Goodness! Well?' 'Well?' 'What then?' 'Put 
something in it ; silver will do ; not gold. Then you 
must go up and present it to her, in your best style ! ' 
I looked for little ' Fatty.' She had curled up on a 
footstool to save her clothes — at the foot of either her 
mother or a duenna; she looked like one of Velas- 
quez's dwarfs. Was I afraid? No — never, &c. I 



3000 Women employed in the Tobacco Factory. 343 

boldly mustered — my mttchas gracias — for the honour, 
&c.; and with half-a-dozen chinking pesetas within the 
cambric, I laid my tribute in her lap ! As I bowed a 
lovely crimson was remarked overspreading my in- 
genuous face ! ' Fatty ' wreathed her adipose and 
pretty features into dimples and smiles ; and — I — re- 
tired. A wreath of dimples is so mixed a metaphor 
that I use it to show that my embarrassment remains.. 
Fair, fat, fatty Fatima, farewell for ever. 

I do not say that all the women of Seville are either 
fair or fat, or deserve to be associated with honied 
oranges. I saw a company of three thousand coming- 
out of the tobacco manufactory, and I did not see 
anything very sweet or remarkable in their features or 
conduct. They belonged to the lower classes, and 
live from hand to mouth. The Government uses one 
of the most splendid buildings, an old palace, for this 
monopoly. In it they employ the number of females 
I have named. These women are renowned less for 
the liveliness of their lives and expression of features 
than for the pliancy and piquancy of their tongues. 
Let the forward soldier, who hangs about the portal 
to see them come forth at evening, as they do in 
droves, salute one, beware ! It is understood that the 
new Government is going to abolish this monopoly of 
the tobacco business. They would do well to abolish it. 
Thereby they will set us and others a good example. 
In America the Government undertakes printing 
presses, speculates in cotton fields, and runs railroads. 
Where they will run to before they get through we 
shall see some day. They are all running sores on the 
body politic. 

The Cathedral of Seville is hardly surpassed in the 
Catholic world. It is next to St. Peter's. The riches 
of a great mercantile community, at the time when 
the galleons of Spain were freighted with the silver and 



344 Characteristics of Murillds Painting. 

gold of the new hemisphere, were lavished upon this 
splendid temple. How to picture its Gothic gloom, 
its numerous naves, its grand organs, its double rows 
of immense pillars, its gorgeous chapels ; how to 
picture one chapel only, lighted with the sacred tapers, 
and glittering with stars on a blue firmament, coun- 
terparts of the floral decorations upon the altar ; how 
to limn to the eye the vision of St. Anthony, the ap- 
parition of the Infant Jesus to the monk, or the 
Guardian Angel, each by Murillo — would it not re- 
quire something of the graphic grace of Murillo's own 
pencil ? The latter picture is, to me, next to another 
of Murillo's — the 'Washing of the Diseased by the 
Virgin,' which v/as stolen hence by Soult, and after- 
wards returned by France to Madrid — the most sig- 
nificant of all the pictures which I have ever seen. 
I would hardly except the 'Transfiguration,' by 
Raphael. I have seen all the genuine Murillos at Ma- 
drid, Seville, Granada, and at the Louvre, and I confess 
to a new delight at every new study of his works. 

Murillo was born at Seville about the beginning of 
the seventeenth century. He made his native city 
famous. It is only, however, within a few years that 
his bronze monument has been erected before the 
Museum, where are gathered so many of his genuine 
works. He was the painter of feminine and infantile 
beauty. Ford says that his first pictures were cold, 
his second v/arm, his third dim, misty, and spiritual. 
His drawing was most conspicuous in the first, his 
colour in the second, and his ethereal grace in the last. 
The vapoury, exquisite, ill-defined glory of the hair 
of his ' conceptions ' is rivalled by no touches of art 
comparable to them. It is objected that he lacks the 
subhme and unearthly; that his children are to be 
seen in Seville, and are not types of the infant Saviour 
before whom the Magi bowed; that his saints are 



The Cathedral of Seville, 345 



Andalusians, and his Madonnas senoras of Seville. 
But no one denies the magic grace and blending 
colour which gives to his lines and forms a natural- 
ness which captivates the soul of the simple as well 
as the connoisseur. His ' Artist's Dream ' and its 
sequel, which we saw in the Museum of San Fer- 
nando at Madrid, are more famous than others of 
his works, perhaps because they have ever had the 
light to display them. The ether in which they are 
painted has been permitted to come down in a 
golden shov/er for their exhibition. But this dim 
and grand Cathedral is hardly the place to show 
them to advantage. Besides, when we saw them there, 
the light was much curtained by the heavy gold- 
trimmed velvet hangings. 

These hangings were just put up, for the next day 
was the celebration of Corpus Chris ti. The guide 
assured us that the hangings were a present made by 
the merchants of Cadiz and Seville, and cost 32,000 
dollars. This cicerone had an eye to pecuniary values. 
He gave us an appraisal of each Murillo in Spanish 
dollars. One he valued at 500,000 dollars. While 
following him we saw the elevation of the two patron 
saints of Seville, San Laureano, and San Isidore. They 
were brothers, and in the religious wars led the Chris- 
tians. They were successively made archbishops. 
They are represented, even by those who do not agree 
with their creed, as men of great intellectual force and 
acumen. Their figures of silver were lifted by means 
of ropes and pulleys to their places, for the ceremonies 
of to-morrow. Rightly to have described this supreme 
wonder of cathedral architecture, with its many- 
coloured marbles and richly-hued windows, its illumi- 
nated volumes and finely carved choir, one should be 
entirely alone in the great hush of its stony heart. The 
seventeen splendid entrances should be closed, the 



34^ Murillds Meditations. 

world shut out, and the twenty-three chapels should 
be unbarred, that the eye might be nearer to the rich 
adornings, sculptures and paintings within the sacred 
precincts. The ninety-three painted windows should 
shed their choicest dim, religious light. Here in these 
aisles, where the uncontaminated effluence of God is 
not tainted with the impurities of mortality ; here, 
under the forms of the sacrificed Saviour and beati- 
fied Virgin, with the cross garlanded in enduring 
marble, or chased in silver made of the first offerings 
of Columbus from our New World ; here, at the twi- 
light hour, rendered even more dusky by the dim light 
of the Cathedral — here Murillo used to wander, ponder, 
and dream. What unpainted imaginings were his ! 
Before one picture here — a descent from the Cross, 
by Campana, a pupil of Angelo — he used to stand in 
reverential reverie until his eyes swam in tears ; until, 
in rapt vision, he almost waited for the holy men to 
complete the work of taking our blessed Saviour from 
the tree. It was before this picture that he desired to 
be buried ; as before it, there came to him in rapt 
vision — 

' The progeny immortal 
Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy, 
And Arts, though unimagined, yet to be ! ' 

But how can I picture the infinite variety of art, 
taste, and wealth here gathered. Whither shall I turn ? 
To the colossal St. Christopher, bearing the infant 
Saviour over the stream ? To the historic silver keys 
of Seville in the sacristy ? To the tomb of Mendoza ? 
To the palisades of pipes in the great organs ? To the 
marble medallions ? To lofty-vaulted roofs ? Or shall 
I not rather await the great ceremony of to-morrow, 
when the living masses throng along these aisles, listen 
to the symphonies of the organs, and the chaunts of 
human praise? I cannot elect what to do where the 



Fernando Colon, Son of Columbns. 347 



confusion is so interesting and the interest is so charm- 
ing. As I walk along, thoughtful and silent, in the 
grand temple, toward the front portal, listening to the 
music which now begins as the prelude of to-morrow, 
my eye catches on the pavement a view of two cara- 
vels at my feet ! This is singular ! I look closely. 
Colon, — Cohimbns ! As an American — a Columbian, 
and as a navigator, having been in every continent, 
and having once lived in a city of that name — I step 
back ! Columbus ! No ; it cannot be. I saw his tomb 
in Cuba. I know that his body is buried in that old grey 
ivied cathedral at the Havana. I look closely ; for the 
letters are worn. On with my glasses ! Down on my 
knees ! Off with the dust ! Yes ; it is Columbus ; but 
it is only the tomb of his son — Fernando Colon. I 
read: 'To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new 
world!' Here, too, is the epitaph of the son for the 
father ; very touching. But that the father was so pre- 
eminent, the son would not be in the shade ; for he 
was a rare man and scholar. Within this cathedral 
is preserved his library of 18,000 volumes, and with 
them the log-book written by the hand of the father, 
and his volume on the 'Imaging of a New World;' 
together with his a priori proof from Scripture of its 
existence. Where his son lived there is now a village, 
whither Sevillians go on Sundays for cheap wine. 
The village is named Gelduba, and gives to the 
descendants of Columbus the title of Count. The 
family sepulchre is there. 

Meanwhile, we have forgotten that this cathedral is 
founded on a mosque. The tower — Giralda — is 
Mohammedan. It has for its vane a woman holdino- a 
metallic flag, called the Labaro, or banner of Constan- 
tine. This blows about according to the wind. Of 
course, many jokes are made about its feminine fickle- 
ness. Although the woman is named ' Faith,' weighs 



348 The Originator of Algebra. 



twenty-five hundred weight, and is fourteen feet high, 
yet she is moved as easily as a child's bladder-balloon 
by every zephyr ! The illustration displays what I 
would say. Up this tower we walked — up — up — 350 
feet. The ascent is easy. The plane is gently inclined. 
It is a good deal easier to go up than to learn the 
architect's algebra, for will you believe it ? we have 
found in this architect the originator of that branch of 
mathematics. His name is Jaber. He was a Moor. 
He made this tower out of an ' unknown quantity ' of 
Christian and Roman statuary hereabouts. His invari- 
able formula was X plus Y equivalent to nothing. He 
came to that in the end. Here — to this lofty pinnacle 
which old Jaber, by ' contracting ' his mathematics, 
built so extensively — we climb. Here we are amid 
the monstrous bells. From this point the Moham- 
medan used to cry the muezzin. The same tower now 
summons the Christian to prayers, and never with 
more energy than with those bells at this festival season. 
What a splendid view we have from the tower. Skim 
the horizon around. You see the mountains of 
Morena afar ; then Almaden, or its mountain vicinity, 
famed for quicksilver; then, betv>^een the mountains 
and your position, a plain fruitful with harvest ready for 
the sickle ; then the Guadalquivir, across which is the 
suburb of Triaria ; and beyond that, and beyond the 
green olive hills, is the village where the unhonoured 
Cortez lived and died, where the honoured son of 
Columbus lived and died, and where many an old king 
and emperor was born and died. Sweep round with 
the walls of the city. Run your vision from the Palace 
of Montpensier, or from the Tower of Gold, or from 
the Alcazar and its gardens of orange, citron, pome- 
granate, and roses — if your eye will run from these 
three attractions which lie together near the river, 
thence from this point of triple interest, you may range 



Shop of Figaro^ and Don Jita^iis Hoitse. 349 



round the walls. You may wonder at the tenacity of 
the Roman cement and the Moorish brick, one upon 
the other, which constitute even yet an impregnable 
fortification. Observe the old gates of the city. You 
will in your range pass through many suburbs ; but 
the old walls mark the old city yet. The view within 
the walls is that of an Oriental city. The house-roofs 
are tiled with the grey tile, a little mossed, while the 
roofs and domes of the churches are, some of them, 
blue-tiled. The city is compact, and interspersed with 
greenery, but it does not attract the eye so much from 
this lofty point as the objects immediately beneath. 
If you can quit following the pigeons and hawks which 
have made these towers so populous, and who flit in 
and out among angles and corbeilles, pinnacles and 
eaves, look calmly, or, if you cannot, let your head 
swim down dizzily, as mine did, upon the orange court 
below — down upon the fountains where the pious 
Moslems used to wash before prayer — down upon the 
Moorish walls, square buttresses, truncated pillars, and 
globe-shaped decorations — down upon the walls of 
the great Moorish palace, the Alcazar — down upon the 
Exchange, where three hundred years ago merchants 
met to discuss the health of the Inca, the shares of 
Potosi, the news from the Havana (as yet they do now, 
and quite briskly), where they counted their gains from 
Chile and Peru, Mexico and Costa Rica — down upon 
the bull-ring which has so often resounded with 
plaudits to the real Spanish hero, the matador, and 
which next Sunday is to be crowded in honour of the 
festal season — and down upon the Plaza Santo Tomas — 
where is seen the shop of Figaro — made immortal by 
the lyre (spell it right, lyre) as the barber of Seville ! 
I think, after such a flight, we may rest at Figaro's. 
Let him gossip of the senoritas, of his vicinage, and of 
Don Juan, whose house, by the bye, we saw too, near 



35 o Fete of Corpus Chris ti at the Cathedral. 

Figaro's, not a fictitious Don or house either, but a 
much more authentic person and mansion than that 
of the barber ! 

The next day found us at the Cathedral to see the 
FETE and the procession moving thence. It was a 
rainy day; but the canopies were across the narrow 
streets, and the procession, with its emblems and fra- 
ternities, is gathering at the Cathedral. We are there 
before lo o'clock. The Cathedral is crowded. The 
tapestries adorn every pillar and nook. The organs 
are responding to the music of the choir. The music 
of the boys is seraphic — female voices they seem in 
sweetness. The throng presses to the east end. Here 
at this end is a richly endowed octave, and pictures 
treating of the conception, one by Murillo ! Here 
the dignitaries, choristers, &c., assemble. Here the 
ceremonies are proceeding ; and, as one exhibition of 
joy for the risen Saviour, are the ' Seises^ or Sixes. 
These are twelve little children, apparelled like pages 
in the time of Philip III., in blue, white, and red, 
innocent as the children Christ blessed, and they 
danced a beautiful yet solemn dance, with castanets 
accompanying sacred music ! The effect of this symbol 
of jubilee did not strike us as in any degree either ill- 
timed or inappropriate. It is one of the expressions of 
the happy Andalusian heart in its own favourite way, 
and is no more to be carped at than the music of the 
violin, organ or flute, being but another mode or 
accompaniment of lyrical or hymnic expression. The 
procession of fraternities is made up of the most sub- 
stantial men. Each bears a Hghted wax candle. The 
military and civic processions join, then the Arch- 
bishop, followed by the priestly order ; and thus, with 
music of bands and amid crowds in every balcony and 
along the streets, all in their best attire, and hardly 
exempt from the rain which the awnings do not alto- 



Pedro the Cruel, 351 



gether avert, the procession moves through the prin- 
cipal avenues. These avenues are decked in canopies 
and with hangings from every house. In the evening 
Seville is illuminated. All the gaiety of this lively 
people, notwithstanding the rain, shows itself on this 
grand occasion of Corpus Christi. It is said that the 
day is not kept so gorgeously as it used to be here. 
But I do not see how it could be more august or 
imposing. It is said, again, that the ceremonies of 
Corpus Christi are conducted here with a solemnity 
and grandeur second only to their celebration at 
Rome ! I can well believe it. 

I have had much to do to keep my pen from a pre- 
mature description of the Alcazar, or house of Caesar. 
It is on the site of the Roman praetorium. It was built 
for a Moorish king, but has been so altered — so gothi- 
lied, or modernised — the ceilings have been so renewed, 
and so much has been added by the Spanish kings and 
queens, that it is hard to tell which is the Moorish 
work and which is its reproduction. Here Charles V. 
was married. Here the Philips introduced the royal 
portraits into the building, fishes into the ponds, new 
tropical trees into the gardens, and fresh fountains 
through all the walks. The palace has been white- 
washed, and the aqueducts injured ; but much has 
been recently restored. The grandest hall is that of 
the ambassadors. It is on the grand scale what, the 
Alhambra is in miniature. We are shown where 
Pedro the Cruel killed his brother ; also a painting of 
four skulls where he hanged four venal judges. Pedro 
deserved his name. He was in the habit of murdering 
almost anybody ; when he could find no one else 
handy, he used to select a few rich Jews and burn 
them to keep his hand in. When he took a fancy to 
a young lady, and she jilted him, he burned her to a 
cinder. Only one lady, whose portrait is preserved in 



35- Padilla and Blanche of Bourbon, 



the Alcazar — the beauteous Padilla — ruled this mon- 
ster. The story of Pedro is her story. 

But as some one laid flowers on Nero's grave, so 
Pedro has found his defenders. Voltaire is among 
them. Pedro may not have been so bad as he is 
painted. Lockhart has several ballads about him. 
It may be said in extenuation that he came to the 
throne in bad times. His domestic relations are 
illustrated in the lives of his father. King Alonzo, and 
his mother, and the lady Guzman, whom his father 
afterwards made queen, and whose sons he made 
princes. On his father's death, Pedro caused the 
Lady Guzman to be beheaded in the castle of Tala- 
veyra. Her powerful sons then began the struggle 
for revenge. One of them, however, Don Fadrique, 
made peace with Pedro, and came on invitation to 
a tournament in Seville, 

' For plenar court and knightly sport within the listed ring.' 

It is the old story in which the imperious Padilla 
played her part. 

' My lady craves a New Year's gift ; 
Thy head, methinks, may serve the shift.' 

The head was given to Padilla, and she gave it to 
a mastiff to devour; meanwhile leaning out of her 
painted bower to see the mastiff play. We know the 
history of Padilla. The opera tells it. It is sung in 
the sweetest of music. For Padilla, Pedro deserted or 
rather murdered his wife — the unhappy Blanche of 
Bourbon whose plaint Lockhart so sweetly sings : — 

' The crown they put upon my head was a crown of blood and sighs, 
God grant me soon another crown more precious in the skies ! ' 

It was this Pedro the Cruel whom the Black Prince 
came with the English and Gascons to fight. Old 



Relics of Roman days, 353 



Froissart tells that story. Its sequel was the violent 
death of Pedro by the hand of his illegitimate brother 
Henry. Walter Scott has a ballad about this. So 
that literature has much to do with the immortality of 
infamy belonging to that age and dynasty. 

Never was there a more beautiful domain than this 
Alcazar. It is simply horrible to associate with it 
those scenes and days of perfidy, cruelty, and murder. 
It is, however, like the Alhambra, blood-stained and 
lust-tainted. It likewise resembles the Alhambra in its 
palatial decoration ; only the halls are more exten- 
sive. The gardens are the most beautiful in Europe. 
Orange, box, and myrtle form the walls. Labyrinths, 
coats of arms, and other quaint shapes and devices, 
appear in the dipt vegetation. All through the fairy 
realm the odour of the asahar fills the air. In the 
lower garden is an azulejo — a domed Moorish kiosk. 
Under the palace are gloomy apartments, once used 
as bathing-rooms and prisons. Here we found the 
relics of the Roman days lying loosely around. In 
the terrace of the palace, above the gardens — you may 
wander in and out — into the Alhambra-tinted rooms, 
and out on the balconies into the fragrant air. When 
it is all over, you may v/onder at the jumble of archi- 
tecture and civilizations — wonder what all this was 
meant for, who paid for it, and why Pedro the Cruel 
ever lived; and then you may pay four reals to the 
porter as consideration for the suggestion of your 
thoughts. 

The reader will do me the credit to admit that I 
have not generally affected the archaeologist. Under 
great temptations — I have hitherto refrained. A 
scholarly friend writes to me — from amidst the com- 
forts of a New York mansion in mid winter — that he 
could not scold me for being as poetic and pulmonary 
in the South of Europe, as a fashionable clergyman. 

2 A 



354 Antiquarian Research, 

He advised me to resort to antiquarian research, 
and let the large family of American Leatherlungs 
blow out and away ; observing that men now shine 
like the bust of Brutus by absence ; he recom- 
mended me to improve that absence by exhuming 
at Ancona a MS. proving that the mole of Hadrian 
was only a wart on the imperial physiognomy, or by 
digging up at Ostia a silver buckle with the inscrip- 
tion Sus. per Coll. — proving that 'gallowses' were 
worn, as well as erected, by the Roman patricians, 
tempore Gallieni. 

Although thus advised to rush after ruins, and 
forget, in historic doubt, the dirt of the 'living 
present,' I have abstained. Although Roman ruins 
are so numerous in Britain, France, Algiers, and 
especially Spain ; and, although I have been near them, 
and tempted, yet I thought it preferable, if I desired 
to exercise my faculties as excavator or annotator, to 
search for the relics at Rome itself, or read the 
epitaphs of departed greatness, without the delusive 
gloss of distance and doubt. I would, myself, prefer 
to rummage among the catacombs of the Eternal 
City, but not being able to get to Rome, the next 
best place for illustrations of Roman Imperialism 
is at Seville, or rather Italica, within sight of Seville. 
Were not three Emperors born there? Were not 
the Caesars especially fond of the place? Was it 
not the pet — and why should it not be ? — the pet of 
the wits, who indulged in too free a use of the 
pasquinade (excuse the anachronism) ? or I should 
rather say, the Martial-ade, and, as a consequence, 
were exiled to this other Rome ? And is there any- 
thing more illustrative of Roman greatness and power 
than the fact that here, in (then) far-off Iberia, the 
mistress of the world ruled while she refined the people, 
who here illustrated by letters and art the lessons 



The Rtiins of Italica, y^^ 



which the mistress taught with so much potential 
persuasion ? 

So, leaving Seville and its museums, its fete-days 
and its bovine fights, its Oriental languor and Gothic 
grandeur, its dances and demoiselles, its alcazars and 
alamedas, we take a long, dusty ride to the Roman 
ruins of Italica. Crossing the river, glancing at the 
crowd on the bridge who are watching the seining 
below for a drowned man, stopping at the Venta des 
Estrelles — ' Star Tavern ' — ^\\diere we are served with 
the rarest muscatel, native to the country, tasting, 
however, of the pig-skin, and the tar on its inside, in 
which it is bottled — passing across the plain where 
once the Guadalquivir ran before it took a fancy 
for the Seville vicinity, we arrive at a little village, 
called Sante Ponce. This village is literally on the 
top of Italica. We stop at once at the amphitheatre. 
Before we venture within let us ponder. It is hard to 
believe that so much dust is collected above these 
forums, theatres, palaces, houses, and temples. Where, 
O conscript fathers ! are the sumptuous edifices now r 
Not as a school declamation do I ask it; but there, 
here, under and around, is all that is left of this once 
proud municipium. One mosaic pavement, fast dis- 
appearing by being torn up by tourists, and one little 
patch of fresco, are all that remain of your sumptuous- 
ness. The proud city where Trajan, Adrian, and 
Theodosius were born — ^where Scipio Africanus built 
homes for his veterans ; where their eagles were borne 
in many a triumphal procession ; the Goth and the 
Moor have abandoned, and even the Guadalquivir 
deserted. Your palaces have been quarries for yonder 
rival city. A few great stones lie around, relics of 
your greatness, but the lizard and the gipsy lurk 
amidst the broken fragments ! 

Some marble statues have been found by excavation 

2 A 2 



356 Immortality in Noseless Marbles, 

under the olive orchards. We saw in the Museum at 
Seville and at the Alcazar some broken monuments 
of Italican art. Several of these represent Augustus 
C^sar^ several Hercules, some Trajan and Theodosius. 
Every specimen seemed to be either a foot or leg without 
a body, a breast without a trunk, a head without a body, 
or a bust v/ithout a nose. By putting this and that 
together, one might form a complete human body, the 
nose excepted. 1 cannot distinctly affirm that I ever met 
with one single piece of authentic ancient sculpture 
with a nose. It is sad, but so it is. To those who 
are seeking through the chisel the perpetuation of 
their image and features ; to the ambitious statesmen 
and soldiers of America and other lands, I would say: 
Ponder the lesson which is taught by Italica and the 
ages ! If you insist on being handed down in brass, 
very well. Brass may do for you ! But if in marble, 
you will go down the corridors of time noiselessly, in 
noseless if not nameless marble. For when your 
noses are lost, what is there to mark your heroic 
quality ? When that characteristic protuberance has 
become pulverized, and your artist has neglected to 
sculp on the marble the name of 'John Smythe, of 
Smytheville, brigadier and congressman!' what is 
there of consideration for the outlay of your green- 
backs or the satisfaction of Smytheville ? Again, 
what is there for the renown of Smytheville? And 
to you, my coloured American brother, a word ; You 
are seeking fame, honour, office. You, too, like 
Scipio Africanus, C^sar, and Pompey, desire to be 
handed down in enduring marble. When thou 
knowest that even Roman noses are abraded by time, 
let not the brutal Conservative, sneering at your 
features through the medium of science, taunt your 
effigy in the great future you are seeking. There- 
fore, my brother, be not ambitious of such immor- 



The AmpJiitheatre of Italica, 357 

talization. Your full-length iigure will turn out a 
bust. Your bust will be noseless ; your name will be 
in dust; your fame in ashes. Few marbles survive 
in perfection. 

' Can Volume, Pillar, Pile, presence thee Great ? 
If not, do not trust the noseless statue.^ 

Italica teaches this lesson ; we are all mortal ; mor- 
tality is dust ; dust is unpleasant. We found it so ; 
for the very dust, golden with historic memories — 
perhaps the dust of martyred Christians who died in 
the amphitheatre — ah! that brings me to the spot 
where my moralizing began. Into the amphitheatre 
we go. It is the Coliseum over again. But to reach 
the arena we creep under vaults. We go in where the 
gladiators and wild beasts went in. There is a musty, 
damp smell, and plenty of moss about these vaults. 
There are stream^s running yet, after two thousand 
years. They bubble up here and there. They show 
good masonry. Adrian made the reservoirs and 
aqueducts. The fountains where the gladiators bathed 
and the room for the prisoners are here yet. Grass 
grows in the circle and upon the seats. The latter are 
broken, but they are as marked as if filled yesterday 
by ten thousand spectators. We see a few stones with 
inscriptions. We have come thus far without a guide. 
Directly we see other visitors convoyed by an old man 
wearing a sash and carrying a gun. He is the warder. 
He sends after us his young nephew, Pedro. We had 
already read a writing, posted upon a fragment of a 
ruin, advising us that the Commission of Monuments 
in Seville had selected Gregory Ximenes, as the guide 
and philosopher of Italica. (The Ximenes — from the 
great Cardinal to Irving's ' Son of Alhambra ' — are 
famous in Spain.) The nephew, however, did well for 
a while. I questioned him : ' Pedro, what did they do 



3^8 El Nodo, the Badge of Seville. 

here in the old times ? ' He has his lesson well. ' Six 
things, seiior.' ' What ? ' ' Racing.' ' What racing 
— horse-racing or human racing ? ' ' Chariot racing.' 
' Good.' ' Next, they pitched quoits, fought with fists, 
filled the arena with water and had naval battles,' or, as 
he called it, simulacia of fights ; ' then they fought 
wild beasts.' He had enumerated fixt — very well. He 
said that the gladiators used to wash in the rooms 
below, and that the well was full yet, twelve feet deep. 
He pointed out the cages for the lions. Sitting amidst 
the arena, on a stone, with the innocent, yellow, purple, 
and red flowers growing about us, the nephew told us 
the most sanguinary stories, and showed us the actual 
teeth of the wild beasts. He told us how some of the 
gladiators preferred to suffer death in their cells rather 
than to endure the ignominy of fighting with beasts for 
their lives ! The old warder then, having dismissed 
the tourists, came to us. He had his gun, a cartouche 
box, and a bran new leather belt, with a large medal, 
and on the latter these signs : ' No. 8 Do.' Now, this 
mystery I had seen all through Seville. It was on 
flags, in processions, in churches, over shops, in ventas, 
over the City Hall — everywhere. No. 8 Do ! It was 
as mysterious as S. T. XX i860. Was it an advertise- 
ment — a provocation to curiosity? Did it mean 
bitters, ale, or was number eight cabalistic and signi- 
ficant of Carlyle's religion ? Do ! This ancient warder 
solved my doubt. Seville was ever faithful to Alonzo, 
son of its saviour from the Moors. Alonzo was a 
learned fool. He gave Seville this badge. It is called 
El Nodo. It means ' No-mha dexa-do^ and that 
'means 'It has not deserted me.' Madexa is an old 
Spanish word for knot. Nodus is Latin for knot. Thus 
Seville happened to hit on the Phoenician merchant- 
mark, the Nodus Hercuhs. The figure 8 represents 
the knot. This mark in Phoenicia meant commerce. 



Popular belief in the truth of Don Quixote. 359 

Seville, without intending it, reproduced this emblem 
of commercial adventure. How she illustrated it 
history tells ; for at one time she had 400,000 popu- 
lation. 

Our warder, Gregory, was a man of much interest, 
in his own eyes. He was a little of a wag, too. He 
had been under fire, and under Prim. He had been to 
Rome, and had the cross of San Fernando. He con- 
ducted us through the vaults, then unlocked a cup- 
board and showed us, to his own surprise, first, a 
beautiful big lizard called Lagardos, which crept 
within, and then, to ours, a perfect piece of Roman 
mosaic — the only remnant, as he said, of the decoration 
of the building. It was then boxed up, to preserve it. 
He next led us out of the theatre into his hut among 
the tumbled rocks. The ivy grew round the ruins. 
Hollyhocks, onions, verbenas, snails, pinks, and grape- 
vines — these were scattered amidst the fragments. His 
little hut was without ventilation. We asked him if he 
lived there alone. ' Yes, he had no wife now ; his gun 
was his wife.' He was not so well off as Robinson 
Crusoe, he said, who had a man Friday. His hut was 
pretty well charred, as he made a fire inside, and the 
smoke had only the door for a chimney. I asked him 
what he knew of Crusoe. He had read it in Spanish. 
It was his favourite. He believed it. I asked him if he 
had read of Don Quixote. ' Oh ! yes, senor ! ' But 
he added — I translate him literally — ' I do not hold to 
the truth of all that book.' He said it was in some 
respects like Sinbad. He had read Sinbad, and did 
not accept it as verity. It is a fact, in Spain, or at 
least in La Mancha, that the common people believe 
implicitly in the Don. They have not a doubt about 
Sancho. In verification that he was a real man, a 
peasant told me that he had seen in La Mancha one 
of Sancho's descendants. He looked like the pictures 



360 Gregory^ the Gtdde and Warder of Italica, 

of Sancho, and he was a good, devoted friend, fat, jolly, 
and selfish withal. 

Gregory showed us with pride his verbenas and 
pinks, his nectarines and grapes, growing amidst the 
blocks of Roman ruin. He was accustomed to kill 
rabbits and partridges amidst the ruins and fields, for a 
supper now and then, but kept his gun near him, in 
these times, as he hinted bravely, for other purposes. 
He said all the town was Republican. He was for 
Prim. I asked him if he had ever been married. 
Yes ; but he had lost his Eve some time ago. Wrap- 
ping his handkerchief around his head, he started out, 
over the wheat fields and through the olive orchards, 
to show us the Roman baths, the forum, and the 
ancient city. The latter is only partially exhumed. 
Its stones are now mansions of Seville. Ximenes said 
he had not travelled much himself, but his picture 
had gone round the world. Some photographist had 
taken him amidst the ruins of the Roman Empire ! 
We clambered after him over and under ground, 
through brambles and weeds, and saw what was to be 
seen of ancient glory. That was but little. Only two 
relics did we bring away — a piece of mosaic and a 
Roman coin. But we have materials for future medita- 
tion ; for we know that here, where the grain and flax, 
the wine and olive, now grow, the thoughtless peasants 
make ruin and decay tributary to human wants. They 
draw on what seems a bankrupt treasury of a proud 
and defunct empire — which the Caesars themselves had 
helped to build — for the oil which they mix with their 
salads and the bread which they saturate with the oil. 
Imperial Caesar's dust — ^you know what Hamlet says. 

On our way to Seville we kept to the slope of the 
hills. We stopped at Montpensier's country palace 
and secured entrance. It is on the Calle Real, or 
Castileja de la Cuesta. The view is very fine ; but we 



Montpensiers Country Palace, 361 

did not go there for the view. Here it was that Cortez 
lived and died. In 1547, aged sixty-three, the con- 
queror of Mexico — a broken man — yielded up his 
spirit to his God. His bones were removed to Mexico, 
the scene of his glory and crimes. Yet he is a hero in 
Spain. Montpensier has one room of his palace alto- 
gether dedicated to Mexico. There is here a picture 
of his brother, the Prince de Joinville, bombarding 
Vera Cruz ; 2ifac simile of the Act of Independence of 
Mexico in 1821 ; the sword of Iturbide ; a fine view 
of Queretaro and Jalapa ; a portrait of the ill-starred 
Count of Bourbon, massacred in Sonora some years 
ago : several perfect likenesses and portraits of Cortez, 
and one of Columbus — a wonderful picture, taken in 
1506, fourteen years after he discovered the New^ 
World. He is represented as bald-headed, v/ith great 
perceptive faculties, a wide space betv/een the eyes, 
large nose, and keenest eyes ; but he looks like a sad 
and wearied man. Was the portrait taken after he ex- 
perienced the ingratitude of Spain ? 



( 3^2 ) 




CHAPTER XIX. 

A PRINCELY AND ECCLESIASTICAL CAPITAL- 
TOLEDO. 

' Whilom upon his banks did legions throng, 
Of Moor and knight in mailed splendour drest. 
The Paynim turban and the Christian crest, 
Mixed on the bleeding stream, by floating hosts oppressed.' 

SOUTHEY. 

HAVE a ring of cities, full gemmed, in 
my memory, which deserve to be displayed. 
Carthagena, Alicante, Valencia, Murcia, 
Grenada, Malaga, Seville, and others, I 
have endeavoured to illustrate. I have not yet spoken 
of Toledo, Cordova, Aranjuez, Madrid, and Saragossa. 
For the sake of completeness, I owe something of 
description and much of praise to these olden seats 
of princely and ecclesiastical power. I have omitted 
to follow my own rule, to photograph impressions in 
the momentary sunbeam. Omitting to do so, and a 
few days intervening, my recollection becomes entan- 
gled ; but it is the tangle of flowers in a luxuriant but 
neglected garden. Where is there to be found a more 
fruitful source of blooming memories than at Cordova 
and Toledo ? Where has there been so much of 
regaUty as upon the banks of the Tagus, amidst the 
pastures, forests, and palaces, of the modern seat of 
royalty, Aranjuez ? And then there is so much to be 
gleaned at Madrid. The prevailing political excite- 
ment prevented my observing much that was interesting 



I 




^iiijsisiftlii 



The Skeleton of a City, '^G'^ 



there, and it also prevented me from writing what 1 did 
observe. But casting back the reminiscent eye — with 
my foot moving forward toward the Pyrenees — my 
first glance rests upon thy stately castle and sacred 
towers, O Toledo ! 

Toledo is but three hours by rail from Madrid, but 
it is switched off the usual track of travel. It is 
situated in a mountainous district. The Sierras, which 
divide the waters of the Tagus from the Guadiana, are 
seen from its walls. Toledo stands upon a rocky emi- 
nence of the Tagus, which here bursts through moun- 
tains of granite, encircles the city, and turns many old 
Moorish mills as it girdles the walls. My sketch gives 
a fair idea of its position. It Vv^as ever a strong place. 
There is but one approach to it. It is on the land 
side. The Moorish towers remain to show how well 
that part was defended. Toledo is a city set on a hill ; 
it cannot be hid. Nay, like Rome, it is set on seven 
hills ; or, rather, it sleeps on seven hills, and with the 
somnolence of the seven sleepers. It has no longer its 
two hundred thousand souls. Its population is less 
than its far oiF Ohio namesake's by many thousands. 
It is now the simulacrum, the ghost, or, rather, the 
skeleton, of a city. Its spirit has departed, but its 
substance remains. Its bones are perfect. The Goths 
came like a tempest; the Moors poured down like 
the rains, and they have gone; but Toledo, in sub- 
stance, is still found, because founded on a rock. It 
is called Imperial. That is a memory. It is called 
the Crown of Spain. That is a fly in the amber of 
history. It is called the 'light of the whole world.' 
In the dark ages, when the other portions of Europe 
were shrouded, Toledo, like Salamanca, was the home 
of learning, the capital of empire, and the seat of 
chivalry. She was a Pharos in the world of letters, 
arts, and theology. 



364 Approach to Toledo. 

I do not mean to convey the impression that the 
Tagus, whose valley we follow from Aranjuez to 
Toledo, is all the way rocky and rushing. It is not. 
It ruminates — or eats its way wearily — over level, 
grassy plains, after it leaves its fretting, working, irri- 
gating duties, through the palatial pleasure grounds at 
Aranjuez. It is thus like the Guadalquivir. It is so 
nearly on a level with the banks and fields, that we see 
numerous donkeys and mules at work along the banks 
pumping up the water for the fields of potatoes and 
wheat. You see that potatoes, Toledan citizen of the 
Western world, do grow in the vicinity of your name- 
sake. What their size is I do not know. I hope 
they merit a more gigantic tribute than that con- 
veyed in the verse about your Ohio stream : — 

* Potatoes they grow small, 
And they eat them skins and all, 

On Maumee ! on Maumee ! ' 

The fields alternate along the Tagus with potatoes 
and wheat. Here and there is a violent dash of red 
poppies. As we approach Toledo the city towers shine 
aloft in the sun's glare as if they were polished, like her 
blades. The depot is not in the city, but outside the 
walls. To reach the city requires an effort. With 
three mules abreast, and hitched to a rickety omnibus, 
the high bridge is crossed ; then around and up the 
hill, we wind with a rush and halloo (for every one in 
Spain drives mule and horse with all speed tip-hill) ; 
then enter on a gentle gallop through an ancient gate- 
way, into the narrow, steep, tortuous, and badly paved 
streets. Very ancient looks the city. The houses 
have a serious, solid, sacerdotal, and comatose look. 
They remind us of the Moorish mansions. If within 
these walls once lived two hundred thousand souls — 
and now there is less than one-tenth of that number 
— either there are many unoccupied tenements or rent 



Prese7it Condition of the City. 365 

is cheap, or both. The city is as still as death. It is 
like a cloister, so cool and still. It is a pity to awake 
it by the irreverent, reverberating rumble of our 
vehicle. It seems as if it ought not be disturbed by 
the clatter of the mulish hoof. The inhabitants gaze 
out of their shops and houses as if amazed at our 
intrusion. We feel conscience-stricken, as if we had 
aroused a weary person who had done much and needed 
repose. Besides, the Toledans have done much, and 
have much pretension. They have a right to sleep. 
Are they not the elite of Spain ? Is not theirs the 
true Spanish tongue ? Is not here the slow, deep, and 
guttural enunciation, and here the perfect grammar? 
Is not all else patois ? And is not Toledo still crowned, 
if not on earth, in heaven, as the proud metropolis of 
the Spanish ecclesiastical world ? 

It is very hard to find one hotel. I am writing all 
the time with Toledo, Ohio, in my eye. The contrast 
will force itself Indeed, I should not have been here 
but for a sort of foolish Buckeye pride to make some 
felicitous comparisons. One hotel! and that so poor 
that I am reminded by it of our Corsican accommoda- 
tions amidst the mountains of Evisa ! And only one 
public carriage. Think of that. Tagus, cease to brawl 
your praises beneath these historic walls ! Maumee, 
raise your Ebenezer from the turrets of your grain 
elevators ! We could not complain, for we got the 
only carriage — a sort of half omnibus. It opened at 
the rear. Every part was creaky. Its voice was 
cracked, and so were its panels. The harness was 
made of ropes. One carriage. What a fall is here ! 
Once Toledo, besides her immense cathedral, had 
twenty-six churches, nine chapels, three colleges, four- 
teen convents, twenty-three nunneries, and ten hos- 
pitals. Now — only one carriage. No one comes here 
for business. There is no trade ; it would be sacrilege 



^66 The one Hotel at Toledo. 



to traffic. The painter and tourist, with palette and 
pen, may come. Old Mortality may come with his 
chisel. He may distinguish the Gothic from the 
Roman ruin ; decipher the Moorish from the Hebraic, 
and both from the Christian inscription and monu- 
ment ; wander amidst palaces whose halls have but an 
empty echo ; gaze at fragmentary statues dust-laden, 
and pictures time-tarnished; and see great rooms and 
much room for worship, but no worshippers ! 

Did I not say that the hotel was very poor and very 
small ? It was also very old. How the omnibus ever 
worked up and round in the angular streets, with its 
three mules, and these half blinded by the red head- 
trappings, and dashed us into the little court of the 
hotel, where we were suddenly spilled, I do not know. 
Toledo has a good driver. He was the only wakeful 
person I met. The hotel people gave us a room, with 
a dungeon door and a monstrous lock. It had a 
ceiling about seven feet high, though the room was 
nine feet by seven in dimensions. It had a few prints 
on the walls, very old and dusty. One was the 
portrait of the ' Illustrious D. George Juan, profundo 
matematico,' who died at Madrid in 1773; another 
was of a great medicine man. Dr. Valles, who doctored 
Philip II. I pity him. He must have had a hard 
time of it with his distinguished patient. The picture 
represents a melancholy man. I also pity the patient. 
Then there was a picture of D. Pedro Calderon de la 
Barcas, poet ! His face I know. It makes my room 
glorious ! Our feast at the hotel was not Olympian. 
It was a feast of the imagination. I soon perceived 
that we must make our supper here with the ' convo- 
cation of public worms' who are supposed to be 
preying on the dead past in the old crypts. So, 
without more ado, we enter our carriage and proceed 
first to the Alcazar, or palace. 



The Story of Florinda and King Roderick. 367 

The Alcazar is high above the rocky banks of the 
river. You may drive up nearly to its portals. A 
balustrade, decorated with large stone ' cannon balls/ 
lines the upward roads. We pass stone statues of 
Gothic kings, very gray and, as usual with all old 
statues, without noses. How quaintly these effigies 
stand, frosted over with the rime of years. Not less 
motionless are the lazy, live Toledans at midday, 
snugly snoring in the shadow and angles of the great 
square of the palace. Nothing seems to work here- 
abouts but the river. The Tagus generally has not 
been considered worth a — dam — but here there is one. 
The stream roars and plashes, and turns the slow, 
creaking old water-wheels, as it did when the Moors 
lived here. It is refreshing to see the river run. We 
look through the rocky defiles whence it issues. Then 
it seems to please itself by spreading out and winding 
over the Huertas del Rey — the meadows to the West, 
where it works less noisily but as valuably — after the 
manner of other waters in Spanish soil. But then, as 
if tired of the effort, it wanders lazily off toward the 
West. Its waters are fretted by no commerce. They 
are content to empty themselves into the ocean, near 
the capital of Portugal. 

Many a romantic incident, however, is associated 
with its flow. Have you not read Southey's poem — 
' The Last of the Goths ' — and Irving s description of 
Florinda, who was so fair and yet so frail (the frailty, 
however, Southey, as well as Irving, denies), and who 
was seen by Roderick, the last King of the Goths, 
in her bath by its banks — the same Roderick who 
brought so much trouble on Spain, nay, its downfall, 
by his rude wooing. That will do for one story of the 
Tagus. Besides, the Cid Campeador was once Go- 
vernor in Toledo. That fact alone is a romance ! 
Was he not the hammer of Thor for strength and the 



368 The original Chateau en Espagne. 

scimitar of Saladin for chivalry? Is not his name a 
poem? Around it cohere sword, and cuirass, and 
buckler, guitar, castanet, and beauty ! Nay, his name 
is a volume of gold-clasped lyrics of war and love ! 
Far down upon the green Huertas, on which I look 
from the Alcazar towers, the Cid once convened a 
Cortes. It met upon the banks of the river, near 
which are yet to be found some genuine ruins, amidst 
which some poor peasants live. These are the ruins 
of the proverbial ' Castle in Spain.' This castle, it is 
said by Ford, duly confirmed by Murray, was built in 
the air, by Galafre, a king, as a home for the beautiful 
Galiana, his daughter, whom he loved passing well. 
Cynical criticism has it that no such king was ever 
crowned ; that no such king ever had a daughter ; 
and that no such king ever constructed a castle for 
any supposed, or non-existent, or other daughter ! 
Hence I argue that there is good foundation for this 
ethereal architecture I It is also added that Charles 
Martel courted this apochryphal daughter of a king 
who never was, who lived in a castle constructed in 
phantasy ; and that Charles, in a fight which never 
took place, slew a rival, who it is generally believed 
was not killed, inasmuch as Charles never came to 
Spain and the rivalry was a myth ! Is not this the 
very fifth essence of Spanish romance? But the 
Tagus has had something besides ideal castles upon 
its banks. The direst conflicts of that long religious 
war between Christian and Moor here took place. 
They furnish the argument of many a roundelay. 

But let us clamber up into the Alcazar. It is 
refurnishing, if not rebuilding. The workmen tell us 
that before the recent revolution it was intended to be 
fitted up for a college. Once a palace and a fortress, 
it is now — a nondescript. It has felt the improving 
hands of Alonzo, Charles, and Philip. Faqades, rooms, 



French MtUilation of the Alcazar, 369 

and staircases were built by them, and afterwards used 
by paupers ; for it was changed into a weaving factory 
for the poor to work in. The French, in the Napo- 
leonic wars, made it a barrack. They mutilated and 
nearly burned it down. Kings have been born here. 
From its towers, overlooking the regions round about, 
through which the Tagus flows, queens have gazed 
down upon the tide of battle, upon which the fate of 
kingdoms depended. From its lofty point is seen the 
circle of olive-clad hills beyond the dull, dead town, 
the ruins of the Roman circus in the plain, and the 
yellowish, whitish walls of the city, here and there 
surmounted by the still numerous spires of the 
churches. Through its court the birds — the only 
live and jocund inhabitants — chirp the slow hours 
away. Let us hence. Come. There is something so 
offensively defunct here that it would be better to go 
at once to the Cathedral. There we are sure of 
seeing, at least, mimic life, illustrated by the old 
paintings and tombs, which prove that men have 
once stirred the dust of this heavily bound, seven 
sleepers of a city. 

Rumbling down and up through the narrow 
winding of the city streets, followed by beggars, and 
still gazed at by the roused population, we reach the 
principal square of Toledo. It is called Zocodover. 
I have not studied the philology of the term ; but I 
think it means the plaza of laziness. It used to be 
the resort of all the devil-may-care, clever, proud, 
swindhng, and gambling Don Whiskerandos of the 
ancient regime. Still, on a warm day, it is revisited 
by the ghosts of those departed worthies, which lin- 
gering haunt the shady ends of cool stone seats. 

Come along further ! We may see something 
which speaks of the olden time, and of the Jews 
who then suffered, if indeed there ever was a time in 

a B 



370 Toledan Jews not responsible for the Crucifixion, 



Spain when they did not suffer. The Jews of Spain 
were of the highest quahty. Toledo was their 
Western Jerusalem. I have seen an elaborate paper 
in Latin, preserved by the Toledan ecclesiastics, which 
purports to be a protest against holding the Toledan 
Jews responsible for the Crucifixion of Christ. They 
prove that they were of the ten tribes transported 
by Nebuchadnezzar to Spain ; and not only assert 
an alibi^ but insist that when they were consulted as 
to the Crucifixion, they searched the Scriptures and 
found that Jesus was the Christ ; that he fulfilled the 
prophecies of their sacred books ; and that hence they 
advised against the ' deep damnation of his taking off.' 
Whether this is a fictitious document, or a ruse of the 
Jews when hard pressed by the Christians — or what, 
I am not to judge. 

Two synagogues remain to attest what this class 
once were. The older one, built in the ninth cen- 
tury, was almost destroyed by a mob, and then 
changed into a church. The French made it a store- 
house. The soil below the pavement is from Mount 
Zion, and the beams of the ceiling are cedars from 
Lebanon. Its aisles and arches, pillars and patterns, 
mark an era of great Hebrew taste and wealth. The 
other synagogue was built in the fourteenth century, 
by one Samuel Levi — the rich treasurer of Pedro the 
Cruel. It had Moorish arches, an artesonada roof, 
honeycomb cornices — all Oriental, bespeaking not 
only a peculiar people, but a people peculiarly Oriental 
in their architecture. These are but the spoiled and 
degraded memorials of a race which clung with such 
tenacity to its faith that no fires of persecution could 
sever the bond. Ever despoiled and ever filling their 
coffers ; children of peace, and making wealth by its 
pursuit ; coming to this, their favourite Tarshish — the 
golden America of their hopes — from the persecutions 



Eulogiunt pn the Hebrew Race, 371 

of the far East; driven by Roman Emperors from 
Italy in Pagan days ; cut off by * scythes of revenge ' 
through Moorish hate ; in goods mulcted and in per- 
son decapitated ; driven from place to place by 
Catholic and Protestant, they ever clung to the horns 
of their ancient altar, and bore the oracles of God, as 
in the ark of the covenant, down through the dark 
and bloody ages, until in this bright noon of a new 
era they are at length enfranchised even in England 
and in Spain. In England they have at length the 
right of suffrage and that of sitting in Parliament. In 
Spain they are accountable to none but Jehovah for 
their religious convictions. In America they have ever 
been free ; and, being free, how they have thriven ! A 
wonderful race ; Semitic it is called, from its ancestor 
Shem ; Oriental it is, ever persistent, energetic, and 
brilliant. What music has it not composed and sung 
since its harp was taken down from the willows of 
Babylon ? What eloquence, what art, what letters, 
what genius in journalism, in finance, and in states- 
manship, has it not illustrated? Let the Hebrews of 
France, Germany, and England attest. If I mistake 
not, the late Premier of England came from the loins 
of one of the tribes of this Spanish ' Tarshish ' ! Now 
that Spain is free, and the Jews so opulent, would it 
not be worthy of their high descent and rich estate 
if they rescued ' Juderia' in Toledo, and its two de- 
spoiled synagogues from degradation and decay ? 

Now for the cathedral, which towers above all, 
proudly eminent ! We alight at its gates. Before 
we enter the temple itself, observe upon the walls of 
its cloistered avenues pictures of grinning Moors. 
They are cutting up Christians with scimitars, or 
dragging them to disgrace and death. This was a 
lively preface to the stone-bound volume we are soon 
to open. But even these vivacious frescoes are already 

2 B a 



372^ Sculptured Group of St, Raphael, 

beginning to lose their colours, and the turbaned and 
breeched forms their lineaments. But here, along this 
court — upon the left, or outside — is an orangery, and 
the orange trees are intermixed with laurel and cypress. 
That surely shows life sweet and fragrant. The birds 
make their nests here. They sing us a hymn from the 
cypress as we enter the heavy, bronzed portals. We 
tread over marble pavements, on which are written the 
virtues and station of those whose ashes repose beneath. 
We observe sculptures and paintings, 'an innumer- 
able host,' altars and tombs, jasper steps and alabaster 
forms, bronze doors and carved wood-work, bas-reliefs 
and cloisters. There are, amidst this opulent labyrinth 
of art, two conspicuous objects. One is the superior 
painted windows. At sunset they glow like jewels ! 
They are justly celebrated as marvels. The other is 
the Gothic Respaldos of the fourteenth century. This 
is the boast of Toledo. It consists of sculptures in 
white marble — almost yellow now. Columns and 
cherubs surround St. Raphael in hill figure, with his 
head downwards and wings stretched, flying out from 
the marble clouds ! It cost — excuse me — but it is 
reckoned at 200,000 ducats ! I omit the dollar, as 
that detracts from its poetry and subtracts from its 
age. This is the most extensive piece of sculptured 
marble that I have ever seen. It extends to the vault 
of the Cathedral. 

But why should I disturb the dust of old Toledo ? 
Why linger amidst these petrified abodes of the great 
Mendoza and Ximenes — those redoubtable old eccle- 
siastical knights, whose swords were as potential as 
their croziers ? ' Their swords are rust ; their bodies 
dust; their souls are with the saints — I trust.' No 
renaissance in style or sculpture can arouse them to 
glory again. Spain has left them in the rear. The 
orators of the Cortes — the Figueras and Castellars — 



Slavery of the Mind to Symbols. 373 

take the lessons of these elder primates only to frame 
a new code, instinct with the present and fit for the 
political fixture. Nay, to the credit of hierarchical 
Spain be it said that her bishops and archbishops have 
sought places in the Cortes, and have shivered many a 
lance with the ardent orators of that forum. His Grace 
of Santiago, foremost in the arena, brings his learned 
eloquence to bear in support of the unity of his re- 
ligion, and its paramount authority in connection with 
the State. So, in England, their Graces of Canter- 
bury and Dublin, and the bishops of Derry and St. 
David's, Tuam and Peterborough, and more especially 
the last named, have within the week held the Lords 
entranced by their learning and eloquence in defence, 
or in derogation, of the Irish Episcopal establish- 
ment. Omitting all discussion as to the merits of 
such contests — to state the question is all the logic 
required for an American — it is a bright augury of a 
better era when schoolman and churchman step forth 
as it were, from the unseen world into the arena of 
reason, to combat error, defend truth, or even to 
uphold the wrongs which time and power have crys- 
talHzed into institutions and vested rights ! 

But the mind is so framed as to be reverent of the 
past and of the dead. It requires an effort, sometimes 
a convulsion, to free it from the slavery of mere sym- 
bols. There is a just medium between this reverence 
and its iconoclastic enemy. Spain is struggling for it. 
The best Catholics have helped the struggle. Indeed, 
there is no other religion in Spain except the Catholic, 
and there is no probability of any other just now. If 
the Protestant would stop progress and promote re- 
action, let him do as some of the ' weaker brethren ' 
are doing, taking advantage of the new code of tolera- 
tion, and send into Spain inflammatory tracts and 
fanatical colporteurs ; both abusive of the existing 



374 Toledo and its American namesake. 

faith, and so Protestant in excessive zealotry as scarcely 
to be Christian in charity or practice. 

Turn we again to the world of symbol and feith in 
the great Toledan temple. No bickerings of politicians, 
no polemics of theologians, disturb the repose of its 
solemn aisles. All about us are effigies of the departed. 
Yonder chapel celebrates the victory of Ximenes, when 
he took Oran from the Moors. We have visited in 
Africa the scene of his exploits. Here is the sword of 
Alonzo VI., who conquered Toledo ; there is the same 
cross which the great Cardinal Mendoza elevated in 
presence of Ferdinand and Isabella on the captured 
Alhambra ! Come with me into the library of this 
cathedral! How cool is 'the still air of delightful 
studies ' ! How dim the light ! Here are volumes 
gigantic in size, and ponderous with Greek, Latin, 
and Arabic lore ! Here are Talmuds and Korans ; 
illuminated Bibles, the gifts of kings ; missals, whose 
pages were once turned by the hands of an emperor 
of two hemispheres, and printed Italian books as well 
(six thousand), and all reposing unread under dust. 
Has not a new volume been opened by Spain ? Hope 
illuminates and progress peruses it. Paintings there are 
of Virgin and Child, Saviour and saint, holy famihes, 
in this great cathedral, but I miss the ever graceful 
Murillos, which make the Cathedral of Seville as 
entrancing as a thought of Heaven. 

Yet, with all these relics of the past, what is it the 
stranger recalls when he thinks, if he ever does think, 
of Toledo ? Nay, I make the question more specific. 
I ask of the Buckeyes — who have a city christened 
after this proud capital of Spain — what is it you think 
of when you recall old Toledo? Is it her grand 
primacy, her cathedral, her theocracy ? Is it her piety ? 
Is it her Hebrew name — derived from Toledoth — sig- 
nifying ' city of generations ;' the refuge of the children 



Retrospect of Toledan History. 375 

of Israel when Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem ? Is 
it her strange Hebraic history — her having been 
turned over by the Jews to the Moors, because of 
Gothic persecution, and afterwards, when they were 
persecuted by the Moors, turned back again by the 
Jews to the Christians? Do you think of Leo- 
vigildo, the king, who consolidated the Gothic power 
and made Toledo its capital? Is it that Wamba 
and the Cid once ruled here ? Is it that you recall 
the magnificent charities and hospitals here once exist- 
ing? Is it her rugged cliffs of gneiss or her mag- 
nificent veins of granite ? Is it her splendid plaza 
for loungers, her Alameda, her Alcazar, her romances, 
her Chateaux en Espagne ? Is it her primitive donkey 
power ? For know, that Toledo, being on a high 
rock and being without water, and the old Moorish 
aqueducts, or 'roads of silver,' being destroyed, has 
depended this many a year on donkey power for 
water. The donkeys carry the jars in their panniers, 
and thirsty Toledo is thus satisfied. Is it this system 
of elevators which recalls your Spanish namesake? 
Is it the ' great wars which make ambition virtue ' ? 
Both Toledos have had them. Old Toledo was the 
subject of many a fray, bloody and bitter, as your 
Maumee Valley was when mad Anthony Wayne 
waged his Indian warfare, and as new Toledo was when, 
as disputed ground in the 'Wolverine war' between 
Ohio and Michigan, she witnessed the destruction of 
water-melons and corn whisky! The sweat which 
then flowed, and the feathers which were then ruined, 
are known to the old inhabitants of Ohio. Then I 
was a youth, but I have the recollection of hearing 
valiant colonels, in my own native Muskingum hills, 
addressing the militia drawn up round them in hollow 
squares, inspiring them to rescue the realm of quinine 
and hoop-poles from the grasp of the insatiate Michi- 



37 6 The Blades of the two Toledo es. 

ganders ! The recollection makes my heart tremble. 
Ah ! that was a war, whose Cid no poet has dared 
yet to celebrate ! The passions then engendered 
even yet vibrate in the ' cornstalks ' of the Maumee 
Valley ! A remarkable war ! when soldiers retreated 
before a foe which was not pursuing, and ran through 
almost impassable swamps, guided by the battle-fires 
of their own flaming eyes ! The dead and wounded of 
that war were never counted. Both sides fought for 
a boundary-line, and both ran that line with the same 
exactitude and compass. Their lines were both straight. 
I said I was but a boy then ; but the tympanum of my 
ear even now, at this distance and age, echoes to the 
rataplan of that sanguinary war. And yet, I venture 
to say, that it is not this history, that is the vinculum 
of memory, which connects these historic spots of 
similar name ! 

Why then was Toledo, in America, thus called? 
Who christened it ? What for ? Where and how do 
Americans get their magnificent names for village, 
town, and city ? What is now the association between 
the old and the new? To answer these queries I 
have searched history, science, geology, river, people — 
associations of all kinds — fruitlessly. Stay ! From the 
war to the warrior, from the warrior to his weapon, 
there are but one, two, three steps ! Eureka ! 

Toledo, Spain, and Toledo, Ohio, each has a Blade ! 
True, one is a newspaper and the other a sword. But 
when the Toledan of either city would recall its name- 
sake, is it not because he is situated like Aladdin, who, 
when he courted the beautiful princess, found a flash- 
ing blade between them ! Eureka ! I should be 
untrue to my vocation of a tourist if I did not describe 
the visit I made to the manufactory of these world- 
famed blades. Down the steeps of the rock-built city, 
out upon the road and over the plain to the south- 



The Szv or d Factory, 377 

west, and on the bank of the Tagus, scarcely a mile, 
we drive to the celebrated Fabrica de Armas, That 
huge rectangular pile you see before you was erected 
by Charles III. in 1788. It has a chapel dedicated to 
Santa Barbara, who patronizes arms. The sign over 
the door of the factory indicates that the arms are 
called blancas. Why white I do not know, except 
from the sheen of the metal when made into the blade. 
We enter within the gate. Our first salutation is an 
unexpected challenge from a pet brindle goat — ^who 
gave us a ' Mee-hah-hah ! ' We are next saluted at 
the door by an employ^, who was more courteous. 
He takes care to let us know that he made the Toledan 
blades which were sent to the Paris Exhibition. He 
himself had the honour of taking them there. The 
pride of the blade has entered his Castilian soul ! He 
first invites us to a room where there is a collection of 
finished blades. He takes one up. It is of fine temper 
and mirrored-polished. He tries it. It curls up like 
a watch spring or a glistening snake. It flies straight 
again ! He hacks a hard log of iron or steel with it. 
No dent is left on the keen edge. The sword fills 
FalstafFs definition of a good bilboa, 'in the circum- 
ference of a peck hilt to point, heel to head.' 

What is the secret of this refinement of steel ? Our 
conductor says the peculiar water. But there is some 
secret behind. It is not the metal ; that is English. 
It is not the fire ; that is the same old Promethean 
spark. Is there any secret in the handling? They 
tell us not; but I noticed at the forges the most 
painstaking labour and diligence. The secret of the 
Damascus blade, or of its manufacture, ought to be, if 
anywhere, known here. Indeed, the Moors first taught 
the Toledans to make this blade. Knowing that 
fact, and putting the unknown down as the work of 
Oriental enchantment, we are content, without inquiry 



37^ ^ Birmingham Apprentice to Sword-making, 

further, to follow our guide ; first, into the room were 
workmen are pricking the steel with points, and paint- 
ing the marks and decorations on the blade. These 
are then burned into the metal till they add a magic 
glamour to its silver sheen. We then go into the 
department where the grindstones are flying around 
and the sparks are flying ofl; They are turned by 
water-power. A part of the Tagus runs through the 
factory, and works as it runs. While looking at the 
men polishing the blades upon whirling walnut-wood 
wheels, amidst the hum of the room, a clear-eyed boy 
of twelve, catching some words of English I had 
dropped, came up and said, politely : ' I am so glad to 
see some one, sir, who speaks English. Excuse me for 
asking if you are not English.' He had been three 
years away from home, learning to make Toledo blades 
and to speak Spanish. He was a Birmingham boy, 
and as bright in his eyes as the blades he polished, 
though as grimed as Vulcan in his face. I have since 
learned that Birmingham manufactures great numbers 
of Toledo blades ; but this is irrelevant. We purchased 
some of the daggers, as mementoes of the spot. My 
blades had to be paid for ; were they not genuine arms 
from Toledo ? Was not Toledo, for a thousand years, 
the fabricator of those swords most petted by the proud 
Spaniards ? Were not these swords to them almost 
sentient beings ; and, like Burke's rhetorical sabre, 
ready to leap from the scabbard by their own inherent, 
chivalric temper ? We paid well for our souvenirs ; 
but, as the conductor remarked, ^ Serior, one must pay 
for his caprices ! ' 

I have made out my case. It is this blade which, 
more than anything else, gives Toledo its fame. Toledo 
still preserves the art. The Fabrica is the only sign of 
life in or about the city. Three hundred and fifty 
workmen here earn their living making the armas 



The Moral of the To tedan Sword-blade. 379 

blancas for the Spanish cavalry. Until the nations 
learn the art of war no more, and the sword is beaten 
into the ploughshare (a most valuable improvement 
for Spain, where the old wooden ploughs are to be 
seen yet), this grand old capital of Spain will be known 
by the glistening letters painted in umber and burned 
with fire into its blades. These blades have a moral — 
if not in their thrust, in their elegant elasticity. They 
show that the finest metal, the most exquisite temper, 
and the most elegant polish, are consistent with that 
gracious bending which is the proof and essence of true 
gentility. The stiff, unyielding, untempered iron is 
easily shattered ; the pliant, graceful, tempered steel, 
like true courtesy, is for all time. We hear of heroes 
who have backbone. Backbones, to be useful, must 
be vertebrated and bend hke the blade. The Toledan 
blade of choicest quality hath its renown because in its 
polish and elements it reflected the knightly gentleman 
who bore it ! I make my parting salute to Toledo — ■ 
with her own courtly blades ! Swish ! AUons ! 



( 3Bo ) 




CHAPTER XX. 

ALCOLEA— CORDOVA AND ARANJUEZ. 

• ' The temples and the towers of Cordova 
Shining majestic in the light of eve. 
The traveller w^ho with a heart at ease 
Had seen the goodly vision, would have loved 
To linger ' 

Southey's ' Roderick, last King of the Goths.' 

ITHOUT telling you now how I reach 
Cordova, I spring — like the Toledo blade — 
elastic, at once thither. Having been over 
the road, through the waste places of La 
Mancha, celebrated every inch by the eccentricities of 
Don Quixote, am I not licensed, as was the hero 
of Irving's story, to seize upon enchanted means — say, 
a magic velocipede — for the journey? From the 
Tagus to the Guadalquivir we fly by ruined towers 
and ancient castles ; now and then by imperial palaces 
and theatres of Roman eras ; then by olive trees and 
vineyards watered by the Moorish norias ; then with- 
out seeing it, by the dull, poor, but royal, city of 
Ciudad Real (how much royalty in dilapidation Spain 
has !) ; then by the Venta de Cardenas, where Don 
Quixote paid penance and liberated the galley slaves, 
through tunnels and over bridges, amidst scenes of 
Moorish and Spanish wars, over a battle-fleld where 
the chronicles report 200,000 Moors killed and only 
2,5 Christians, through the mining shafts of Linares, 
leaving the impurpled peaks of the Sierra Morenas to 



The Revolutionary Victory at Alcolea. 381 

the right, we come upon a locality where we hesitate 
and halt. Two objects are here memorable. Not the 
Guadalquivir. Its stream still runs red, as if the blood 
of the 200,000 Moors still ensanguined its flood. 
Here at Alcolea, on its banks — if I may drop into 
practical horse-sense — was once the breeding ground 
of the splendid Cordovese barbs. There was the great 
stable called La Regalada. Here were begotten the 
splendid steeds of ample breast and majestic head, 
descendants of the great Arabian Godolphin, on whose 
backs Spain's proud chivalry rode into the battle ! 
The best horses, however, were taken away by the 
French and English in the Peninsular war. But the 
people have had good stock cheaply born as the result 
of these breeding establishments. 

The other object worth seeing at Alcolea was pointed 
out to us — the marble bridge built by Charles III. 
It spans the river with grace. It has twenty arches. 
The marble is dark and rich. The bridge and site are 
now historic ; the site because, as the name signifies, it 
was an outpost fortress of the Moors ; a pivot and 
strategic point in campaigning. Many a battle has 
been fought here. A passenger in the train pointed 
out, with eager particularity, the scene of the battle on 
the 28th of September, 1868. It decided the fate of 
Queen Isabella, and perhaps of Spain. Serrano, now 
Regent, commanded the revolutionary force. Prim 
was then at Cartagena. Serrano drove the Queen's 
forces before him from the bridge, until they dis- 
banded and surrendered. Fifteen hundred were killed, 
and the bridge was slippery and running with blood. 
The general in command of Isabella's forces had part 
of his face shot off. Serrano's popularity is not alone 
owing to the persuasive plausibility of his manners ; he 
has substantial qualities as a general. Besides, as the 
passenger said, it was a touching sight to see him 



382 History of Cordova, 

embrace, with tears, his old and vanquished comrade, 
the maimed general of the Queen, after the battle. 
He granted the most clement terms. In fact, the 
gentleness of his character is its salient and significant 
point. By it he has, for the present at least, recon- 
ciled conflicting elements, and wields the executive or 
kingly power. 

But we are nearing Cordova. The battle bridge is 
but seven miles from the city. Along the rest of the 
route, the influence of the protecting mountains is 
seen in the vegetation. We are in Andalusia again ! 
No more battle-fields, no Toledo sabres, no Isabellas 
to be fought for or against; but here are vegetable 
glories — plumed palms, bloody roses — 

' springing blades^ green troops, ia^ innocent wars, 
Crowd every shady spot of teeming earth, 
Making invisible motion visible birth ! ' 

Here the generous soil — ^warmed by the sun, fed by 
the water, and clothed by the trees — was once, what 
Southey describes in the verses prefixed to this chapter, 
and is yet, the green setting of what the ancients 
called the ' gem of the earth ' — Cordova. Flowers, 
fruits, and trees still surround her. They are the 
offerings which kind Nature lays upon the stony sar- 
cophagus of dead glory. Cordova — once the pet of 
Pompey, the victim of Caesar, the home of poor 
patricians from Rome, the birthplace of Seneca, and 
at last trodden under foot of Goth — had a splendid 
resurrection under the Moor ! It was called the 
Athens of the West. It became the capital of Moorish 
Spain. Its importance, learning, and wealth read like 
fables. It had its sultans, seventeen in number. But 
they, at last, had their rivals. Then came treachery, 
then divisions, then the old story of men and empires. 
With divisions the Spanish conquerors came ! When 



Bachelors and Male Palms, 383 

Saxon England groaned under the Plantagenets — 
rude, boisterous, and enslaved ; from the time of 
Charlemagne to Philip Augustus — Cordova had three 
hundred mosques, nine hundred baths, and six hundred 
inns ! Now, after seven hundred years, how few are 
the Moorish relics ! The Moorish walls and cisterns 
remain ; the Moorish mills grind slowly and ' exceed- 
ing small ' grists ; the Alcazar and Mosque are 
partly preserved; but, as I said, Cordova is a stony 
coffin. Beggars importune where kings commanded. 
Donkeys trudge over paths where pranced the stately 
Moslem chivalry ! Toledo I have described as asleep. 
Her books, her vaults, her pictures, and her sculptures 
give to Toledo an air of drowsy seclusion, which is, 
however, not quite the atmosphere of death ; but 
Cordova is a corpse, or rather the coffin of a corpse. 
Forty thousand people wander and work about its 
narrow streets where once a million lived ! The very 
years since its death are notched by the aloes, which 
disclose the time when the Moors were here. A few 
palms, too, overtop the Convent wall near one of the 
gates. These are souvenirs of the famous race who 
came from 'the fervid land which gave the plumy 
palm-tree birth.' For did not Abdurrahman, the 
mosque maker and caliph, sighing after his beloved 
Damascus, with his own hand plant the Oriental tree, 
that its graceful leafage and stately stem should 
remind him of his old home ? Yet these palms have 
no — dates. I mean by that no facetiousness. They 
are all male palms in the convent garden, and do but 
flower. Fruit comes not to the lonely old bachelors 
of the — convent ! But still bachelors and masculine 
palms have their uses. The fruitless palm is used in 
holy observances, even as the celibate monk has his 
honourable place within. Therefore, repine not, O 
Benedicts ! Ye are vessels of clay — sometimes fine 



384 The Moorish Tower of Cordova. 

porcelain, and sometimes poor pottery: but ye may 
be made sacred by hallowing influences from heaven. 

Our stay in Cordova was but for two days. We 
exhausted its attractions in one ; then rested on the 
other in the loneliness of our Fonda. ' Oft in the 
stilly night' the watchmen of the city, like those at 
magnificent Murcia and splendid Seville, chanted the 
hours. They gave us the weather, too, being incarnate 
barometers as well as vocal chronometers. Thus 
have they sung time away here since the Moor cried 
muezzin from the minarets of the mosque. 

Yet we were anxious to see the city for the sake of 
what it once was. A Moorish tower appears at the 
extremity of the bridge over the river. We cross the 
bridge. On one side of the tower is a waggon fac- 
tory ; on the other a school for little girls. To ascend 
the tower we must go into and through the workshop. 
After the waggon-maker had expanded his tire of iron 
in the ring of fire and fixed it upon the wheel — the 
old process — and taken oflT his leather apron, he 
gallants us to the top. Through dark, damp, and 
devious ways, all out of repair, we reach the summit. 
It is a good rule to find an eminence for your first 
look at a strange city. The tower and its top were 
not unlike in structure and form to those of the 
Alhambra. Grass and moss hung about its tiles and 
parapets. It furnished a fine view of the mountains 
on the sky's rim, the falls of the river, the Roman 
bridge over which we had come, and the city, which 
is as compact as a fortress. 

Coming down from the tower, we perceive the 
school-room. The teacher is an old lady, who looked 
at us kindly over her huge, round spectacles. We 
asked permission to enter. The hum of the room 
stopped. All the little girls rose and saluted us. One 
little girl asleep near the door was awakened by my 



The old Mosque of Cordova, 385 

dropping a coin into her lap. The old lady tolerated 
the twittering titter of the little ones which followed. 
The child awoke ; saw the coin ; thought, perhaps, I 
was an enchanter, lingering around the old Moorish 
tower ; but, shaking off the spell, she followed me to 
the door to return the coin. The teacher said, ' It is 
yours.' She made the enchanter a gracia^ and he 
departed. That was a feature of Spanish life worth 
noting — an offer to return a coin ! Credat ! The 
teacher receives only thirty cents a day for her teaching 
from the city government. Such is the wages of the 
ancient 'Athens of the West.' 

There is to be seen in Cordova one thing which I 
have reserved. Call it still a mosque if you are Moslem ; 
or a cathedral if you are a Christian ; or, if a scholar, 
La Mozqtcita, Arabic for worship. It has never, under 
any rule, been changed from a temple of religion. It 
is enclosed in high walls, and within these walls are 
very old orange-trees. In fact, we saw the oldest 
orange-tree in Spain, as is said. It is called the 
CaHph's tree — planted by him. Parapets and spandrils, 
gates and cisterns, fountains and courts — all bespeak 
the Orient, though the Moors have not been here for 
nearly four hundred years ! The tower of the mosque 
is yellow. Many additions and subtractions have 
been made. It is in good repair, although it has been 
shattered by hurricane and by war. You may have a 
good view of the city and its environs from its dizzy 
height. Very little of the buzz of Hfe comes up from 
below; for there is no buzz when there is no busi- 
ness. You are curious to see the twenty roofs of the 
mosque, and these are duplicated on the other side of 
the court. You then descend ; for your curiosity as 
to the mosque is to be gratified only by going inside. 
Let us enter ! 

One feature of this mosque — or cathedral — is at 

2 c 



386 



History of the Mosque, 



once apparent. It is supported by 1096 monolithic 
columns ! These are of every variety — the red Granada 
marble, the twisted Byzantine porphyry, the yellow 
French marble, &;c. It once had 1200 columns, but 




Mosque of Cordova. 



there remain enough to confuse the vision, were there 
not great symmetry in size and position. Viewed from 
some angles, the maze of pillars looks like a forest of 
neatly-trimmed trees. This mosque was built out of 
the materials of an old Gothic temple, upon whose 



A Christian ironed to a pillar for 25 years. 387 

site it stands, though many of the columns, Uke those 
of the great mosque at Constantinople, came from 
other temples. The Pagan and Christian world was 
ransacked to prop and furnish this mosque. It was 
second only to Mecca and Jerusalem in the Moham- 
medan realm. It was copied from that of Damascus. 
It was not finished till the tenth century, though begun 
A.D. 786. At first glimpse the roof looks low ; in 
fact, it is only 2,S ^^^^ high. It is very unlike, there- 
fore, in solemn grandeur, to the Gothic arch and 
vault. It looks lower than it is, as the area is so great. 
That is ^^^6 by 394 feet. All the decorations of side- 
chapels, all the burning tapers, all the pictorial arrange- 
ments and displays, all the roominess of and under 
the central dome, with its choir and altar, all the filling 
up of the place with Christian signs, imagery, and 
symbols, cannot take from it the odour and presence 
of Mohammedanism. It is a mosque ; it will ever 
so remain. Its dedication is one thing, as the sweet 
music informs me, but its form and structure are 
another. 

As we leave it the sacred influences do not follow us 
as sweetly devotional as at Seville. There are pointed 
out to us, upon one of the marble columns near the 
door, the marks of the chain of a Christian captive, 
here ironed for a quarter of a century by the Moors. 
A cross marked in the marble is said to have been 
made by the captive with his finger-nail. Constant 
rubbing — like the water-drop — wears away stone. 

One more enchanted, elastic spring. I land at 
Aranjuez. It is an hour's ride from Madrid. I can- 
not linger here. True, it is a seat of royalty — royalty 
as recent as Isabella's, and as faded. We stayed but 
two hours and a half The city has 20,000 inhabitants, 
and it is supported, or was, by reason of the palace of 
the Queen and the villas of wealthy nobles. The 

2 c 2 



388 The Palace of Aranjuez. 

Queen spent her April, May, and June, here once. 
She will spend them here no more. The palace is 
called by the natives the ' Metropolis of Flowers.' 
There are trees and gardens about it. It was a 
shooting villa of Charles V. Ferdinand VIL, Isabella's 
father, finished the palace. Here he took his wives 
and maidens, and enjoyed the cascades of the Jarama 
and Tagus, which here unite to irrigate garden and 
forest. They irrigate to some purpose. Long avenues 
of Oriental plane-trees and English elms, filled with in- 
numerable birds, are here. Everywhere is the sound of 
running waters. I made a few notes, in my haste, 
of this place. A hasty copy of them would answer all 
the place demands of a tourist. My notes run thus : — 
Saw labourer's cottage, fitted up with china, tapestry, 
pictures ; malachites, built by Charles IV., a fool, fiill 
of whims ; fine gardens, laid out by an Irishman, 
Richard Wall, who became a Spanish Minister. N.B. 
— Names of gardens changed ; conspicuously painted, 
' Jardin Serrano^ ' Jardin Prim,' ' yardin Topete.' 
Finest picture in palace — Boabdil leaving Alhambra. 
Mem. for a companion picture — Isabella leaving Spain. 
We rushed through palace, dashed through forests, 
strawberries for breakfast, and a run of a mile, with 
beggars following, to the depot ; reached it an hour 
before time ! Depot awfully solemn. Erected pro- 
bably by the Phoenicians. It seems like everything 
about Aranjuez, deserted. A rumble, then an omni- 
bus ; another rumble, the train ! Out of the depot we 
fly ; forests to the rear ; poppy-fields, — a flash of red ; 
donkeys under hay and faggots, tails alone visible in 
the receding landscape ; huts thatched with straw. An 
hour dashes by, and Madrid appears ! 

Having arrived at Madrid, I spent my first day with 
Mr. Hale, our Minister, and his family. After re- 
turning with him from a walk about the city, I was 



The Author summoned before the Minister, 389 



informed that the Governor of Madrid desired my 
presence at the palace — the Casa del Ayuntamiento, in 
the Plazuela de la Villa. One of his officials had called 
for me in my absence. My courier had seen him. 
In great trepidation the courier recounted his inter- 
view with the officer. The question arose, What did 
it mean ? what portend ? What should I do ? The 
Minister rather thought that I was to be arrested for a 
Republican speech made at Granada to the volunteers. 
He was there at the time. This view I was inclined 
to take also. But it was rather too much for me to 
indulge in the hope of the political luxury of such 
an imprisonment. At length we marched to the 
Governor's office. What might not depend on the 
interview ! Would I retract ? Jamais. I repeated 
the sum Romamts^ and felt the wing of our noble 
bird fanning my patriotic brow ! We passed up the 
narrow stairway of the palace ; the route which many a 
criminal had trod before. 

Mr. Hale has not lost his sense of humour, though 
he had lost his place. I asked him, as we walked up 
the worn steps, and with a tremulous treble, ' Mr. 
Hale, have I a guilty look? and if so — of what?' He 
seemed to apprehend that there was a serio-jocoseness 
about the situation, and attributed it to irrepressible 
elocution ! He also agreed that it was rather pru- 
dential and moderate elocution, considering the occa- 
sion, the speaker, the temptation, the wine, the enthu- 
siasm, place, and theme ! It had already cost me for 
arrobas, bread, cigars, and 'federal republican' sau- 
cissons, 492 reals, and was I to suffer more ? Ye 
gods ! If so, let Spain look to her colonial posses- 
sions ! This remark was not audible, but it had refer- 
ence to an Ever Faithful Isle. Well, we were ushered 
into the presence. A full-bodied and good-natured 
man, smoking cigarettes with celerity, bowed. I 



390 Disappointed political self-devotion. 



bowed grimly. I confess to a feeling very near akin 
to a sense of guiltiness. I tried to look — I think I 
did look — innocent of any intentional breach of inter- 
national comity! The Governor inquires my name 
and that of my companions ; he then opens a volume 
of despatches. He has one— a long one from the 
Governor of Granada! So, it is Granada! Well, 
hurrah for Cuba ! The Minister whispers to me aside, 
' There's a full despatch on you, Mr. C. Got a long 
account against you, reported at length. It looks 
formidable !' After much suspicious quiet smoking 
and whispering side-conferences with an officer, the 
Governor announces that — a draft of mine drawn at 
Granada on Paris has not been paid, but protested ! 
'What a fall was there, my countrymen !' I need not 
say that, while I healed my wounded credit with a 
check, my patriotic pride and political self-devotion 
also received a check of another quality. 




Napoleon's Grotto (see p. 71). 



( 391 ) 




CHAPTER XXI. 

MADRID— THE CORTES— JUBILEE OF THE 
CONSTITUTION, 

' A kingless people— for a nerveless State/ — Byron. 

PAIN to-day turns over a new leaf, or 
rather, having perused a new political book, 
contented with the contents, she, to-day, 
snaps the clasp. Spain and all her colonial 
children have been for many years in a state of chronic 
disquietude. Her soil is the result and the political 
theatre of volcanic excitement. She has had more than 
her share of vicissitudes. From the time the Romans 
made her sons slaves in her silver mines, until the 
great era when she made the Americas tributary with 
the same chinking 'legal tender,' and from that era 
till now, she has been violently volcanic. But to-day 
she is republican in fact, though monarchical in form. 
She has no monarch, and yet she has in her constitu- 
tion ample. provision for his election and his govern- 
ment. She has no head, except the many-headed 
Cortes ; yet she is preparing to make a provisional 
head, called a regent, till she can put up a toy dummy 
with a crown on it, or perhaps, put aside the idea 
altogether. 

She has a new constitution. The little boys who 
sell the journals were crying it about the streets and 
plazas before the paper on which it was printed was 
dry. True, it has not been signed by all the members 



392^ Caricature in the ' Gil Bias' 



of the Cortes. I saw some of the lingering, reluctant 
members of the Cortes, called moderate republicans, 
on Thursday, ' step up to the captain's office ' and write 
their names. But it is passed if not signed. The 
republican members, numbering some sixty, have not 
been in haste to sign a document which, in its second 
title and thirty-third article pronounces, ' La forma de 
gobierno de la nacion Espanola^ es la monarquia^ True, 
the preceding (thirty-second) article recognizes the 
sovereignty as essentially residing in the nation, from 
which are all powers. This latter was a little painted tub 
thrown to the republican whale. Still, the republicans 
have not been lively after it. Perhaps the republicans 
might have done better, in one sense, by signing. I 
have just seen in a funny journal, ' Gil Blas^ a good 
caricature of the wives of two deputies : one is woe- 
begone, thin and scraggy, from the furzy head on 
which her mantilla hangs in tatters, to her shoeless 
feet, and short ragged dress. The other senora has a 
towering, glossy, elegant head of hair. If not her own, 
is all snug to her lofty and classic brow. Her train 
sweeps in rich and regal style, and her Grecian bender 
is faultlessly high on the beauteous curve of her back ! 
She addresses the unhappy sister, 'Why art thou so 
miserable ? ' The disconsolate responds, ' My spouse 
has not yet signed the constitution. We die of hunger.' 
'Ah! if he had done as mine has,' rejoins the fine 
senora, 'your hair would be like mine — glossy with 
beauty.' 

Perhaps, when the Cortes meets, the work of signing 
will be completed. It will then perhaps be definitely 
and legally determined who is to represent the pro- 
visional executive or be appointed regent, till the king 
is elected. It is not yet decided ; but it is generally 
conceded that Serrano will be the man. 

The ceremony of to-day, and for the next two days, 



Preparations for the Jubilee of the Constitution, 393 

is the jubilee of the new constitution. First, we are to 
have it proclaimed from the temporary platform 
which I saw lately erecting in front of the House of 
Congress ; after the manner of American inaugural 
ceremonies announced from the east front of the Capitol 
at Washington. Then we are to have in one of the 
plazas a new statue uncovered, commemorative of 
the event. Then wine is to flow, it is said, in one of the 
fountains, at which all will be at liberty to drink. Then 
the soldiers are to take the oath to the Constitution, in 
dramatic style. Then, the city is to be illuminated, 
and then comes the bull-fight, when the ceremonies 
will assume their most enthusiastic form. So much 
for the programme. 

Already, at nine o'clock on this Sunday morning, 
the streets and plazas, and the public and private 
buildings, are decorated, as if for a holiday. Every 
balcony has a red strip of bunting, dashed with yellow. 
Red and yellow are the national colours. The streets 
are thronged. The Puerta del Sol (once a gate, where 
lazy people used to bask in the sun), near the Hotel 
where I stay, is a mazy show. The noise of vehicles 
and screams of newsboys and newswomen mingle with 
the excited rush of people to and fro. Yes, this is a 
fete day ; all the provinces and towns near Madrid are 
represented. It is festive, but who knows whether it 
may not end as a funereal day. 

Parties here are mixed. A stranger has no business 
to try to give an idea of their complications. For in- 
stance, take one division — monarchists. There are 
progressive monarchists — democratic monarchists — ■ 
shading up to the 'strongest Bourbon;' the chivalric 
Carlist, and the moderate Montpensier. Each of these 
parties has its adherents. Somebody has determined 
that Madrid shall not forget that the Duke is a Bourbon. 
The walls are covered with placards. ' Bourbon — Orleans 



394 General Prims Policy, 



— Montpensier.' But Spain recognizes democracy. 
The preamble to the Constitution says : ' The Spanish 
nation, by and through the Cortes, elegidas por suffra- 
gio tmiversal^ does so and so — following the routine 
and almost the words of our American constitution. 
But the resurrection of an obsolete election law cut off 
from voting those who had not attained twenty-five 
years of age. This defeated a full vote for Deputies. 
The republicans, however, though numbering few in 
the Cortes, are morally and intellectually potential. 
They are under the lead of the discreet Figueras and 
the eloquent Castellar. They are more nearly united 
than any other party. It is suspected that General 
Prim, who is to be second to Serrano — in a role in 
which he thinks he ought to be a star — half inclines 
to the republicans, and that in a confusion he might 
go over to them, and consummate what is to-day the 
desire of the people. But Prim disavows ; and grows 
more reserved. In a comic journal there is a com- 
mentary on this complication and division of parties. 
It has especially an eye upon Prim. The scene is : — 
Door of the Minister of War (Prim). 'Haloo!' 
' Well ? ' 'Are you a Carlist ? ' ' No, Senor.' ' Re- 
publican ? ' ' Neither.' ' Moderado ? ' ' Que te que- 
mas,' (now you are near burning yourself, i.e.^ near the 
mark !) ' De la Conciliation ? ' ' There you hit it ! ' 
' Go in ! ' — and he went. 

It is a great relief to the people of Spain that the 
long discussion in the Cortes has closed. This ex- 
citable nation has been unusually vivacious and nervous 
about the result. Trades-people, especially, were be- 
ginning to think that contentment, even under Isabella, 
with all the shame, would do better than uncertainty 
by their own choice, and suspense under a pe- 
rennial fountain of senatorial eloquence. The dif- 
ficulties of making the constitution — growing out 



k 



Sttmmary of the New Constitu Hon . 393 

of the church and monarchical questions, then out of 
the Regency question, added to the financial measures 
— have made the session long, and excusably so ; but 
the people here soon become impatient. They have, 
therefore, some cause to rejoice over the fact that an 
end is made of the debates. While the military are 
parading beneath my balcony, and the trumpets of 
the cavalry are filhng the air and prematurely crowding 
the adjacent windows ; while the crowds are gathering 
round the squares, and in front of the Congress Hall 
— and before I go out to see — I will give you a brief 
summary of the new constitution. 

There are eleven titles, and 112 articles. The 
preamble is modelled after that of the United States. 
It recites the desire of the Spanish nation for justice, 
liberty, security, and well-being, and for the accom- 
plishment thereof provides the following 'constitution.' 
The first title is about citizenship and rights — a bill of 
rights, in fact. It has in it habeas corpus, free speech, 
fair trial, domicile inviolability, protection to private 
property, and rehgious freedom, but not the dis- 
establishment of Church by State. The second title 
divides the public powers ; the third treats of the 
legislative, both Cortes and Senate ; the fourth of the 
King ; the fifth of the succession to the crown and of a 
regency ; sixth, of a responsible ministry ; seventh, of 
the judiciary ; eighth, of the provinces and corpora- 
tions ; ninth, of finances ; tenth, of colonies ; and 
eleventh, of the amendments. One thing occurs to 
me as a special clause. The right of domicile is to 
be regarded — every man's house his castle — except in 
case of fire or inundation, or something analogous. 
That exception springs from peculiar circumstances, 
and is very general and ominously uncertain. Another 
thing to be noted as a part of the progress which 
Spain has caught from England or America. Spain 



39^ Military Spectacle, 

is not to lose her Cortes. Parliament is omnipotent. 
The Regent, King, Ministry, all are at the will of the 
Potential Legislature. Its power is not to be abro- 
gated. This is wise as well as conservative, provided 
the Cortes keeps the constitution. To read this con- 
stitution one would say it is liberal beyond all expecta- 
tion. Will it be executed? Qa depend on the 
people themselves. While I am here in Madrid, wine 
flows, flags fly, drums beat, trumpets resound, men 
march, people hurrah, and bulls die, for the constitu- 
tion, in which there is monarchy ; to-day in Saragossa, 
the ancient capital of Arragon, the people, with great 
demonstration, are burying the crown under their 
historic earth. 

As I occasionally drop my pen to gaze from the 
balcony, I perceive that Madrid grows more and more 
military, or, call it festive. The cavalry have gone by, 
so also the infantry — volunteer and regular — and just 
now the artillery. The guns of the latter are drawn 
by mules, half shaven of their hair. The horses of the 
oflicers are splendid barbs ; their manes are frizzed 
or crimped, and tails cut and cued. They caricole 
nimbly, as if dressed for a lady's chamber. The music 
swells all about us. Ofl^enbach monopolizes the tunes. 
Now a familiar touch of General Boum — quite original 
and congenial, I think here ; then, Barbe Bleue — a remi- 
niscence of the Moors ; then, the ' Belle Helene,' also 
Spanish ; for the charms of a heroine in Spain, Count 
Julian s daughter, made civil war and set kings on fire. 
You should see the mounted men, not gendarmerie 
though they too are out in their Quaker coats, white 
pants, big boots, and cocked hats, but the mounted 
fusileers, each man galloping along with his finger on 
the trigger. I ask what that means t 'It means, Senor, 
fear of Republicans.' There are some fifty thousand 
troops hereabouts. I think that they are all under 



The German Forests the Birthplace of Liberty, 397 

arms. This is a very festive day. It is the Jubilee of 
Liberty ! It is the Jubilee of the ' Constitution ' ! 

Now what is the Constitution ? As one of the old 
advertisements for quack medicines used to say, ' It is 
certainly that which constitutes.' Good ! But Spain 
has always had a Constitution, even when she had 
nothing which constituted. Theoretically, her Con- 
stitution may be traced, as the English, to the days of 
the Conquests, or to the German people before Con- 
quests. England finds her Commons in the Witena- 
gemote. Spain believes that her early invaders, the 
Suevi and Visigoths, replaced the power of Rome by 
an elective monarchy. This was the German way. 
Spain now proposes, after twelve centuries, to restore it. 
Thus you see that constitutions came out of the old 
German forests, the home of liberty and right. This 
fact was noted as long ago as Tacitus. The contest 
between privilege and prerogative, — between Commons 
and King, people and power — can be traced as clearly 
in Spain as it has been by philosophical historians in 
England. Spain has had her Magna Charta. Her 
'fuero juzgo^ drawn up by order of the Gothic Kings 
in the seventh century, was promulgated by the 
Alonzos of Leon. It proclaimed Electione igitur 11071 
autem jure sanguineo olim Hispanice reges assume- 
banttcr. The Cortes of Aragon, where they are now 
burying crowns, as early as 1094 obtained fueros, 
privileges and rights as precious as Habeas Corpus, 
and gave in return guarantees to their kings. Codes 
were agreed on for the transmission of the crown. 
These codes excluded female heirs until 1830. Then 
Ferdinand VII. — the big-lipped, brutal- faced, stupid- 
looking Bourbon — father of the present ex-Queen 
Isabella II. — repealed by a pronunciamiento the ancient 
code. He thus enabled his serene daughter Isabella to 
take the crown. This excluded her uncle Carlos. 



39^ Don Carlos. 



Hence the Carlist war of 1833. Hence the Carlists of 
to-day. I find photographs of ' D. Carlos de Bourbon ' 
selling here by the side of Prim, Serrano, Topete, and 
Montpensier. He is pictured as a Spanish soldier — a 
coming man — on a horse, saluting something with his 
sword. I suppose he salutes the future. He is the 
direct male heir of the Spanish hne of kings, and has 
some supporters here, who think or fancy that he 
may win. They are very active and noisy. 

Spain had a Constitution, even after the French de-- 
parted in 1812. In 1837 she had another. Isabella II. 
was then guaranteed her throne, France, England, and 
Portugal going security. The bond is now forfeited. 
Another constitution was made in 1845. I^ was, 
ostensibly, in force till five days ago. That constitu- 
tion defined the monarchy within the limits of liberty. 
It conserved the ancient rights of the component 
kingdoms of Spain. Isabella and Ferdinand, Charles 
v., and Philip II., made Spain, or rather themselves, 
absolute, or even worse. How horribly they treated 
the Moors and Jews, to the dishonour and detriment 
of Spain, and the misery and disgrace of humanity ! 
This, history records. Buckle has philosophised over 
it, and nothing remains to be said. But all the time 
there was a current of democratic liberty running 
beneath the tyrannies of those times, like the pure 
streams which are found even beneath the grand 
palaces, in conduits from the free mountains to the 
thirsting cities! Spain has had her Sydney s and Russells. 
I have read their names painted on the Cortes panels. 
We have had in America so much Protestant or Puri- 
tan politics and philosophy, that we scarcely know 
that ultra-Catholic Spain has a long and illuminated 
roll of worthies who worshipped hberty even as they 
worshipped God. True, they were sometimes nurtured 
in the cloister ; oftentimes in the hut or the court ; 



Chartered rights of Spanish Provinces . 399 



sometimes in the field ; and very often in the universi- 
ties ; but ultra-Catholic Spain had the very eye, ear, 
head, muscle, heart, mind, genius, and soul of freedom. 
Why it was repressed, I do not ask now. Buckle 
answers. That it is now abroad, all know. When I 
write what I have seen in the provinces and in the 
capital, among the peasants and in the Cortes, you 
will re-read Buckle, with new annotations, and believe 
that Spain means much and means nobly by her new 
aspirations and struggle. 

Spain is a unity, made by coalition, marriages, com- 
merce, interest, physical boundaries, and olden pride. 
She is united from many diversities. We think Vir- 
ginia was proud and imperious ; but think of Castile ! 
We reprehended that rash and undutiful daughter 
Carolina ; but think of fiery Andalusia ! We talk of 
cold, isolated, imperious, intellectual New England ; 
but forget that Aragon, Leon, Navarre, Catalonia, 
Valencia, Biscay, and Mancha have a thousand years 
of fueros, independencies, kingdoms, parliaments, codi- 
fied laws, and immemorial customs more peculiar than 
all the several virtues of New England. We, as pro- 
vinces in America, or as thirteen colonies, had scarcely 
a century and a half of chartered rights, and as the 
United States hardly a century of State rights. What 
a splendid field for the illustration of a federal republic 
is Spain ! Let me particularise : Biscay had peculiar 
laws. They were published as early as 1526. She 
was always free from conscription and taxes, except of 
her own levy. The Queen was only Lady of Biscay, 
not ruler. The families of Biscay were and are auto- 
nomous rulers. Barcelona had a commercial code, 
which became that of Spain. It was printed the year 
after Columbus reported, in Barcelona, to Queen 
Isabella (he made his report April, 1493) that he had 
found gems and gold, and that there was a new world! 



400 A Spanish Federation suggested. 

For four centuries all Europe regarded the Barcelona 
Consulado del Mar as the law of the sea. The laws 
as to real estate in Spain are as different as the cos- 
tumes of the different provinces. Catalonia has one 
law and the different provinces of Castile others ; the 
Balearic Islands one, and the Canaries another ; in fine, 
as to all the subjects of human, national, and provincial 
rights, Spain has more pride and pertinacity than she 
has had success in their exercise. If there is one 
nation where provincial independence has been eager 
to be recognized and harmonized with nationality, it is 
Spain. Hence, how easy, if fairly tried, to inaugurate 
a system of federation here, and how hard it has been 
to make any centralized system durable! With the 
forty-nine provinces, each having its Civil Governor and 
Provincial Council and Assembly, we can understand 
why, when revolutions may overturn, they do not alto- 
gether destroy, and why Spain retains her old franchises, 
even when the world believes she is being torn to 
shreds by ambitious chieftains and factions. 

True, Spain has had revolutions. They have not 
been unassociated with bloodshed. Recently, when 
walking about this capital with the American Minister, 
he pointed out to me where the balls had blistered the 
walls and stones, where the cannon had pierced the 
buildings, and where the gutters had run with blood. 
This happened as lately as 1866. Isabella II. then 
was marked. Her time had nearly come ; but by 
some misadventure O'Donnell was enabled, by his 
artillery, to crush the revolt before the infantry could 
combine with the artillery. The latter had twenty- 
four pieces, and were within two streets of the 
palace. Waiting for signals from their confederates in 
the insurgency, they failed. Not so Prim, Serrano, 
and Topete. Their work is to-day to be consummated ; 
I cannot yet say exactly, crowned! They hold Spain, 



The Inatcguration of the Constihttion. 401 

under no crown and with no sceptre, because they 
have conciHated by hberaUty the republican elements. 
They pretend to make the monarchy an empty bauble 
and the republic a living fact. Hence there is a 
strange^ and to some an unaccountable, indifference to 
the erection of a throne ! But there is no indiiference 
to the establishment of a constitution. If there were, 
what does all this trumpeting, mustering, and viva-ing 
mean which salute the ears ? 

Having an eye for displays, being fresh from 
Granada, Cordova, Seville, Aranjuez, and the Es- 
curial ; having seen the parliamentary halls at Valencia, 
with almost as much interest as those at London and 
Paris ; and having, while here three weeks ago, heard 
Prim and Serrano and the republican deputies speak 
in the Parliament House, I have become so interested 
in Spanish politics as to rush off with the crowd to the 
place where the 'jubilee of the constitution' is to be 
most conspicuously celebrated ! 

I am now abiding at an hotel near a famous 
gate. That gate is now a plaza. My balcony looks 
out on the plaza and down the street of St. Geronimo. 
Through that street the crowds pass, and through that 
street the regiments march. Having secured a roof 
near the Cortes edifice for the ladies, I move in that 
direction to take possession. On the way we mingle 
with the throngs. For a half mile — about the distance 
from my hotel to the Cortes — the whole route is full of 
moving people. We move with the crowds. Directly 
we come to the neighbourhood of the Cortes. A statue 
in bronze appears. I have seen it before. It is Cer- 
vantes. He stands before the Parliament House, and 
before the palace of the Duke of Medina, and before 
the people. He is before them all. He is immortal. 

Having placed my company on the top of a four- 
story house, I seek the crowd. The scene is splendid. 

1 D 



40 2 L iving Murillos painted and framed. 



From a thousand windows and roofs ten thousand fans 
of as many females are fluttering, like butterflies in a 
flower garden. The sun is hot. The air simmers and 
vibrates with caloric. The red, maroon, yellow, gold, 
and white canopies, hangings, and fringes from every 
balcony make it a festive scene. But that scene 
would lack much if the maidenly modesty of many 
hundred living Murillos were not painted^ and framed, 
too, and peeping from the windovv^s of palace and 
mansion. But our eye seeks next the front of the Con- 
gress. There it finds a scene worthy of a Dutch painter 
for particularity of detail and individuality of person. 
It is like the canopy of an olden tournament ex- 
panded to the proportions of a national exhibition. 
There is a crowding of well-dressed people thither. A 
telegraph often strands of wire goes out of the Cortes. 
There are safety and civilization in that idea ! There 
above, the tops of the houses are covered with people. 
The palaces of the grandees are also covered. The 
women above, like those beneath, are bonnetless ; but 
they have mantillas. I try to get near, in order to see 
the dignitaries who are under the legislative canopy. 
I am told there are one hundred generals and some 
three hundred majors and as many deputies under 
those yellow and red awnings. So I press on. I get 
to a point where I can see the Church of the Ascen- 
sion ; then the great palace of the Duke of Medina. 
Everywhere are hangings and flags of red and gold and 
white and yellow. Now I can glance under the large 
canopy. It extends the whole front of the legislative 
building. Under it there are seats for the dignitaries, 
and I creep down so near that I can smell the quality 
of the cigarettes which the well-dressed young men in 
the crowd and the gay young soldiers on the platform 
puff into the faces of the seiioras and senoritas who are 
freely mixed in the mass around me. A hurrah is 



The Author renting a lamp-post, 403 

made ; rather a viva ! Four vivas ! One for the 
Cortes ! one for Serrano ! one for Prim ! one for the 
Constitution ! The Constitution is last ; but the vivas 
are executed spiritedly enough for a Spanish crowd. 
The guns fire ! I change my position, having an eye 
on a gas post, in case of retreat. Near are several of 
the cavalry patrol. Their horses are restive ; so are 
the people. The latter all have canes ; and when a 
horse pushes near them several canes punch the horse ! 
This makes the horse and the crowd mutually viva- 
cious. A very restive horse makes the people very 
restive. The calendar of saints is run over in a hurried 
and profane way by excited Espagnols. A rush of 
horses and men is made. I strike for my lamp-post. 
I give a small boy, who is up the post, a peseta for his 
place, and obtain the privilege of climbing up ! I 
climb. There is a wild dash of cavalry. It is to clear 
the way. There is an intense excitement. The 
crowd think that there is an Smeute. How they run ! 
up the main street and down the back streets. Every- 
body rushes. I am still and solid as iron ; being 
anchored on my post. There was nobody injured, 
though London and Paris telegraphs reported great 
loss of life ! 

There is a vacant place cleared before the awnings, 
where the Cortes, with Serrano, Prim, and the Generals 
now are ! I look all around. A shot of a pistol would 
make trouble. The house-tops are crowded. Another 
rush of cavalry ! Then a sound, as of — ' Hi ! Hi ! ' 
We look up to a four-story house ; girls are getting 
out of the attics on the roof; boys are chaffing and 
hallooing at them ! Then, another rush and push ; 
and from my perch on the lamp-post, I see on the 
platform the American Minister. I feel under his 
protecting shadow. 

The scene in front of the Cortes was one which, 

2 D 2 



404 The Representative Men of Spain. 



once seen, will not be forgotten. The building is of 
white marble. Imagine a platform gorgeously de- 
corated with the national colours, crimson and gold, 
with the shields and arms of the different provinces of 
Spain emblazoned in endless variety. This platform 
is occupied by the two hundred and sixty members of 
the Cortes, by the representatives of foreign nations, 
and by the most distinguished civic and military 
functionaries of Spain. These grey-headed, scarred 
militaires are exhibited to convince the people that the 
army supports the Cortes and the new Constitution. A 
space of perhaps eighty feet in width in front of the 
building is kept clear for the manoeuvres of troops, a 
double line of whom make a wall of bayonets to keep 
back the crowd. This crowd might well be numbered 
among the wonders of the earth. Of all nations, con- 
ditions, ages, and colours — from the Arab of the desert 
to the yellow Peruvian and the dapper citizen of Paris. 
England and America had few representatives. The 
fear of revolution has kept tourists away from Spain 
this summer. The representatii^e men of Spain upon 
the platform appeared well. The Cortes, a iine-looking 
body of men, occupied the centre, with the grandees 
and notables upon their right, and the foreign envoys 
upon the left. At the table in the centre sat Serrano, 
Prim, and Topete, the three most prominent members, 
of whom caricatures were widely circulated, repre- 
senting them as auctioneers offering the crown for 
public competition. 

Some fortnight ago I had the pleasure of visiting 
the Cortes several times, and there I saw and heard 
Prim and Serrano, but not much from Topete. It is 
not difficult to find the House of Congress. It has a 
gilded sign, 'El Congreso de los Diputados! The 
edifice is handsome, though small for a national 
assembly. It is new, having been completed in 1850. 



The Cortes Halt. 405 



In the centre of the principal faqade is a triangular 
front. You hardly notice it to-day, amidst the deco- 
ration of flags above, under, and about it. Its figures 
are supposed to represent Spain receiving Law, accom- 
panied by Power and Justice. At the steps two horrid 
bronze lions represent — something wild. The lions 
were formerly of stone, but a cannon ball nipped off 
one of the leonine heads in 1854, and bronze was 
substituted. 

I propose, while the military are marching, trum- 
peting, drumming, and thundering through the city, 
and the dignitaries are waiting for the troops to pass 
in review before them and salute the Cortes and its 
new Constitution, to go inside. Not to-day, but ntmc 
■pro ttcnc, when I heard the debates more than a fort- 
night ago. It was somewhat difficult to obtain per- 
mission ; however, I sent my card to President Rivero, 
who sent a caballero to conduct me to the Diplomatic 
Gallery. I soon began to understand what was going 
on. There is a universal language. Parliaments, and 
parliamentary halls and debates have a common object. 
As I am taken through byways and corridors, up and 
round, I fancy I tread the maze of the Capitol at 
Washington, or am lost in the lobbies of the English 
Parliament. The Speaker's room at Washington has 
its counterpart in the Sala de la Presidencia. But the 
latter is not so much like a furniture establishment as 
the former ; for it is decorated by an elegant and sig- 
nificant painting, executed with skill, and eloquent with 
meaning. It far exceeds the flimsy frescoes of the 
rest of the House. Grisbert is the painter, and the 
subject is ' The Comuneros.' It is a representation of 
three popular leaders— Bravo, Padella, and Maldonada, 
who were .executed as martyrs of liberty in the time 
of Charles V. It is a sad scene : similar scenes will 
one day be painted for the English Parliament when the 



40 6 Many Paintings of Kings ^ few of Patriots. 

people have their empire in England. The same will 
be done for America when Art assumes her sceptre 
there. Out of all the paintings in Europe — not 
sacred — which we have seen, how few speak of aught 
else than of the kings, grandees, and aristocracy! The 
heroes of the people — the Pyms, Hampdens, and 
Mirabeaus — are unpainted. Inside of the Cortes hall 
there are paintings representing royalty on the throne, 
and the deputies of the people at the footstool. The 
fresco of the dome is allegorical. The seats for 
the members are red, circular, and raised as they 
recede from the chair. The hall in size and appearance 
resembles the old Hall of Representatives at Wash- 
ington ; it has not much more gallery-room ; yet here 
the accommodation is considered extensive. It is 
more so than in the Chamber at Paris, or the ridi- 
culously little Parliament Hall in London. 

The interior is very lofty and well ventilated. There is 
a marble pavement in the centre of the hall. That is 
neutral ground. Behind the President are red hangings, 
and above them, or above the canopy, is a symbolic 
castle. On either side of the chair are two remarkably 
dressed persons, who leave every once in a while, as 
if for a drink. They are replaced by others. They 
have on theatrical, gay caps, and long white feathers 
in them. They hold in their hands a gilt mace, or 
■ — something. Their dress is a long robe of red and 
gold. Making allowance for their standing still so 
long, their chief employment seems to be to uphold 
the dignity of the ancient Cortes, by gaping ; as if 
they had just wearily waked up, like the seven sleepers, 
to the realities of a new era! The Secretaries, who 
are Deputies, sit on either side of the President. The 
hall has pendent from its centre a splendid chandelier. 
Around and below the galleries are the escutcheons of 
the provinces ; each once a kingdom. 



speeches of Leaders in the Cortes. 407 

Speaking is going on ! Opposite, on the left of the 
President, sit the RepubHcans. Below me, on the right, 
on one bench, called banco azitl^ sit the ministers. 
The members speak from their seats. They have little 
desks, which let down and shut up. They are but 
seldom used. The debating is very spirited. It is, to- 
day at least, humorous. A republican is uttering a 
diatribe upon the financial situation. He is cheered 
with vivas ! The House is much more quiet than 
our Congress or than Parliament. Even the poorer 
speakers are not disturbed. Disorder is checked by a 
' hist ! ' or ' tisst ! ' from the members. The President 
calls to order by a bell any member who is out of order. 
He had occasion to make several rings upon an 
eloquent, cool, determined, happy, good-natured, pun- 
gent speaker, who held the crowds in the gallery and 
the members very intent ! It was Castelar ! Bald- 
headed rather, like most of the members ; black 
moustache ; elegant contour of face and figure, and 
with a graceful ore rotundo voice, he is considered to 
be as pre-eminently the orator of the Cortes as he is 
undoubtedly the Liberal leader. 

His speech for the republic and religious liberty, 
accompanied by his portrait, is hanging at all the book 
stalls and stores. Directly after he has concluded, 
an attack is made on Figuerola, the Finance free- 
trade Minister. He is a rather tall, thin man, with 
very little auburn hair ; and, as I believe, a gray eye. 
He wore a long surtout, and spoke a little awkwardly, 
with one hand in his coat pocket. He spoke, how- 
ever, with energy. For a student and professor of 
political economy, as he has been, he seems to take 
the rough liandling of the politicians admirably. I 
heard, on another occasion. General Prim. He is 
the character of the Cortes. He is a short, compact 
man. He is a little bald-headed, but not old, say 



4o8 Prim, Serrano, and Topeie, 



forty-five ; his hair is black, his whiskers and moustache 
are black. He is a reserved man. He imitates Louis 
Napoleon, it is said. He is a self-made man. His 
mother was a Catalonian and a washerwoman. He is 
a capital, energetic, ardent, Spanish speaker. He speaks 
at first humorously, then pithily, then patriotically, 
and then, with a lifting of his hand and eye, to God ; 
a touch of his finger on the region of the "waist- 
coat," and then with Spain, Spain, Spain on his lips, 
as a ringing climax, he sits down, with a loud viva as 
his echo ! I did not fully understand him as he spoke, 
but I read his speech afterwards. It was a dedication 
of his heart, soul, and life to Spain ; repelHng all 
rumours and thought of failure in his steadfast duty 
to her liberties! Then more fine speaking followed 
from a republican, interlineated with much bell ringing 
by the indignant President. Then one of the Ministry 
speaks with great grace, and with a rhetorical shrug of 
the eloquent shoulder. Then Serrano rises ! There 
is a hush. Then a replacing of canes and eye-glasses, 
and a settling into deep attention. Castelar takes 
notes. Then the reporters, fiYt, sharpen their pencils, 
and one eagerly stands up to be sure of his hearing! 
The banco a.zul grows more aristocratic ; for is it not a 
duke, a soldier, and the leader who is to speak ? He 
looks like a polite, plausible man. His light hair is 
tinged with gray, or, rather, his moustache ; for he, 
too, is rather bald, like the rest. He and Prim have 
been passing some bon-bons, sent down from the 
President either to prepare the larynx for smooth 
utterance, or to cultivate the sweet amenities. Serrano 
fills my ideal of him as a persuasive and popular man. 
What he says is received with vivas, and, what is 
better, with respectful decorum. Topete, the sailor, 
also said something, but I could not catch the pur- 
port of it. He is a plain, blunt man, and afi'ects the 



Cortes cojupared zvith Congress a7id Parliament, 409 



sailor style. Such are the leaders of the September 
revolution. 

Full in the midst of one of these harangues, a 
deputy from the provinces rushes in and cries out : ' I 
claim the zuord ! ' — not ' the floor.' But as the orator 
who has the zoord has not concluded, the eager and 
rustic member is laughed at and laughed down, just as 
in the English Parliament or the American Congress. 

From a general survey of the Cortes, I cannot but 
accord to them a more than ordinary style of oratory 
and an extraordinary measure of intellect. They speak 
out boldly and plainly their thoughts. They never 
dribble them through written essays to empty benches, 
like x\merican Parliamentarians. No man is heard 
very long who does not say something ; for the lobbies 
are near, smoking is common and attractive, and the 
exit is speedy. There is a striking similarity in the 
appearance of most of the deputies, at least from 
the gallery. They are far above the average for 
intellect, according to my observation. I will not say 
that they outshine the xlmerican Congress ; but they 
are certainly equal to the English Parliament. I have 
had opportunities to make the comparison. 

This is the body which has just finished for Spain 
an organic law. To-day it is proclaimed with the 
imposing ceremonies which I have described. 

There is no space in my unpretending volume to 
describe the swelling scene in the Cortes and on the 
portico in its front. Certainly not if I had to copy 
the titles of the grandees as they are recorded in 
Spanish heraldry. In the Cortes — such as I have 
pictured it — at 1 o'clock. President Rivero assumes 
the chair. He declares the session begun. ' Con- 
forming to the order,' he says, ' the Constitution voted 
by you VN^ill be proclaimed, and all the " Seuores 
diputados" will, on leaving their seats here, be shown 



41 o The Military Pageant. 

seats outside !' He leads the way with the secretaries, 
and, together with the Constitutional Commission and 
the ministers, he is seated on the banco azul ! The 
Supreme Judicial Tribunal, the provincial deputations, 
and those from the cities and towns, and the scientific 
bodies, surround them. All the civilians are together, 
and their appearance is celebrated by more salvos of 
artillery and cheers from the people. Two secretaries 
relieve each other in the reading of the Constitution. 
More salvos and vivas announce its conclusion. The 
deed is done. The members return to their chamber. 
There they are sworn to support the instrument. 

The processions move on, on, for two hours or 
more. I leave my place on the lamp-post, and retire 
to my leased roof. I am on a four-story house. 
Below me are Portuguese and French in the crowd ; 
also, Galician, Castilian, Basque, Valencian — men, 
women, and children of every Spanish province, 
each known by the handkerchief on the head or the 
pantaloons and sash; and all eager to see the 50,000 
soldiers who are filing by to salute the Cortes and its 
work. For two and a half hours the volunteers and 
regulars march by. In blue, red, black, green — 
infantry, cavalry, artillery, the mounted police or 
gensd'armerie, the shining bayonets, the glittering 
helmets and cuirasses, the flags of crimson and gold 
> — all marching, and marching as no other soldiers' do, 
to quick step. One tune is dominant. It is the Mar- 
seillaise of Spain — the hymn of Riego. It is named 
after a Liberal General, who was a pet of the people, 
and died for them. It is music, splendid and stirring. 
A few months ago, people were shot for singing or 
whistling it here. For nearly a dozen streets, past 
the palaces of the grandees and down the wide avenue 
in front of the gaily-decked platform before the 
Cortes, — these fifty thousand march ! The ofiicers 



Superb Arab Steeds of the Cavalry. 411 

salute, the men touch caps, the cheers go up. It 
does seem as if Spain had hope ! This is all for a 
new order — a better day. God help them ! How 
splendidly and dashingly the men march ! How the 
long lines and areas of human heads, decked with 
colours or hid under gay fans and silken sun-shades, 
lean forward to see each new regiment ! How hand- 
somely the cavalry ride their superb Arab steeds ! 
Never did I see such horses ! Each one is fit for 
the model of the steed of Aurelius done in bronze 
in the Roman Capitol. The Spaniard is enough of 
a Moor to ride like him ; and his horse is enough 
of a barb to make horse and rider a centaur ! George 
Eliot, in her new poem, touches my fancy with historic 
and physiological verity and artistic and facile pencil, 
when she says : — 

' Spain was the favourite home of knightly grace, 
Where generous man rode steeds of generous race, 
Both Spanish, yet half Arab ; both inspired 
By mutual spirit, that each motion fired 
With beauteous response, like minstrelsy — 
A fresh fulfilling — fresh expectancy.' 

Perhaps she had her hint from the Cid and his horse, 
as Lockhart translates the ballad : — 

' And all that saw them, praised them,— they lauded man and horse. 
As matched well and rivalless, for gallantry and force. 
Ne'er had they looked on horseman, might to this knight come near, 
Nor another charger worthy of such a cavalier.' 

The appearance of the cavalry, all on black horses, 
clad in shining mail and helmets plumed with white, 
was like a blaze of burnished mirrors. The eye could 
not bear the Oriental blazon. It was a relief when 
they had passed by, and when the cavaliers, called those 
of the Prince — (the name is to be changed to-day) 
' — dashed after them. The music, all mounted, pre- 
ceding the cavalry and artillery, is like a thousand 



412, 'Viva Constitucion Democratica !^ 

organs — slow, solemn, thunderous, and grand. In 
some of the bands there were eighty pieces. Some 
of these pieces were large enough for an ordinary 
American 'string band' — to hide in. They sounded 
with a diapason that made the air rumble, and between 
their notes there was occasionally a solemn hush like 
that after the summons to judgment from the trumpet 
of Gabriel ! 

Immediately below me (for I am yet on a roof) is 
the Commanding-General of Madrid — General Milan 
del Bosque. I know him bj his grey moustache and 
beard. He is a great friend of Serrano, a member 
of the Cortes, and a dashing soldier. How his sword 
flashes as it salutes the flag and the officers as they 
go by! Here come some cavalry, all a blaze of 
scarlet. Surely, Spain has the most theatric of people ! 
All this seems like a tournament. Has the bull-fight 
given a taste for this bloody colour? The saddle- 
cloths are burning with red and gold ; the facings of 
the soldiers and their plumes are red or yellow. This 
is the guard around the Cortes. They move. It is 
a sign that all is over. Our companions on the roof 
— Spanish fashion —though unknown to us, salute as 
they depart. We look up and down the streets. The 
stand in front of the Cortes is deserted of its func- 
tionaries, grandees, and generals ; but the people push 
up to see where their superiors have just been. 

The Constitution is affirmed. The people and the 
military have done it. We leave for home and dinner, 
only to go out at night and see Madrid in another 
blaze. Every house is illuminated. Gas is indis- 
pensable to a 'Democratic Monarchy'! We observe 
mottoes iji gas jets, like this: 'Viva la MiHcia!' Ah! 
The people, the volunteers, the militia, are to be 
conciliated. Voila — encore ! ' Viva Constitucion De- 
mocratica!' Good! When a constitution making 



The Prado^ and the Gardens of Btten Re tiro. 413 

monarchy means democracy, and when all these ex- 
penditures and galas are to placate the people ; and 
whereas they (the people) used to be shot down here 
by dukes, kings, and grandees, by Narvaez, O'Donnell 
& Co. ; and whereas they are now to be pleased with 
pyrotechnics and gas, therefore, hurrah for the Demo- 
cratic, Republican, Monarchical Sovereignty ! No 
sooner are the words uttered than another illumina- 
tion in gas appears to my eye : ' Viva el Gobierno 
Nacio7ial r This is blazing on the Department of 
the Interior. 

We press through guards and people — whither ? 
From what we learn, there are a hundred thousand 
strangers from the provinces here, to herald and 
confirm — by presence, by hurrah, by gas and bull- 
fighting — the new constitution ! Therefore, the press 
of people is on every side. We go to the main 
avenue, the Prado, thence to the Salon del Prado. 
Salon means a place to rest, though out of doors. 
Here are seats, and all crowded. Thence, through 
splendid gates, to the Gardens of Buen Retiro. We 
are then in the ' Central Park ' of Madrid. Here are 
beautiful groves, walks, rides, and lakes ! Here, yet, 
we find wildness, if not wilderness. Scarcely any 
woods remain about Madrid ; though when Columbus 
discovered America, or even as late as 1582, Madrid 
was a royal residence, because the country was a good 
cover for boars and bears. The arms of Madrid are 
a green tree, with fruit, gules, and a bear climbing a 
tree. Madrid was a cool spot, and it is yet. Charles 
V. was anxious about making this place grand, and so 
he made his court here at an elevation of 2500 feet 
above the sea. He afterwards went into a convent to 
meditate on dust. This elevation on a windy plateau 
gave the name to Madrid ; for Majerit in Arabic 
means a current of air — a Buenos Ay res of dust. 



414 ^'^^ ^^^i ^^^ of the Constihttional Dj^ama. 



In trying to reach one of the eminences which art 
and wealth have here decorated, apart from the dust 
of Madrid, we pressed on, till we found the beautiful 
artificial lake in the gardens of Buen Retiro. We 
found there temples all aflame, the shores all alight, 
the lake all covered with illuminated boats and 
caravels ! We found a hundred thousand people 
surrounding the water, moving amidst the paths and 
groves, and wondering at the exquisite duplicates of 
the pyrotechnic temples and boats mirrored in the 
lake ! And this was the last act in the drama of 
the new Constitution ! 




Travelling Harem (see p. 179), 



( 415 ) 




CHAPTER XX 1 1. 

MORE OF MADRID A^D POLITICS— THE ESCU- 
RIAL—MURILLO AND HIS ART 

HE scene which I have pictured in the pre- 
ceding chapter may not, in one sense, have 
much significance at the close of the year 
1869. While the reader peruses my words, 
there may be new revelations of Spanish politics, if not 
revolutions. But my anticipations are in favour of 
the permanency of the present established order. The 
Carlists will make trouble ; but Prim has the army, 
and he will ruthlessly suppress their attempt. Isabella 
has but little prospect of restoration, and her son still 
less. Montpensier is nothing, unless the Triumvirate 
— Serrano, Prim, and Topete — decree his elevation. 
So long as Serrano is nominally at the head, and Prim 
really the ruler — with a Cortes whose fiercest extreme 
left has been already, and may be more, conciliated by 
delay in the election of a monarch — so long the body 
of the people will be content. The priests are much 
berated for their incivism ; but I believe that the great 
body of them, especially those who minister in charity 
and kindness to the masses of the people, and who 
therefore have their confidence, are acquiescent in the 
present situation. 

If these political pictures of Spain have the tint of 
optimism, I must plead my earnest interest in the 
cause of national self-government, and beg the reader 
to make the necessary allowances. 



41 6 Spanish Political Parties, 

The fiery processes are still going on in Spain. We 
hope for the best, yet fear the worst. The constitution 
has been accepted. It is for the most part as unexcep- 
tionable for Spain as that of the United States is^ for 
us. What is most needed is a just, firm, and honest 
administration. On General Serrano, the hero of 
Alcolea, this depends. The recent discussions in the 
Cortes show that there is much effervescing, if not 
writhing, among the Republicans, They fear the 
appearance of Montpensier, as if royalty were already 
established in his person. But there must be a fiery, 
tempestuous ordeal before that is accomplished. If the 
present regency could be continued in perpetuity — 
without a king — it would be better. The reality of a 
republic would then remain, though the form were 
monarchical. The Progressists, Union Liberals, and 
Democrats, when a republic impended, said : ' Give us 
rather an interregnum for all time than a republic for 
a clay.' It is a curious condition of things — is it not ? 
I am not sure but that General Prim means the con- 
tinuance of a regency ; though, perhaps, Serrano may 
not. Last week, the discussion in the Cortes was con- 
tinued with fresh excitement and rare eloquence. It 
was opened by a Carlist orator, Ochoa. He desired 
Charles VII. to be elected by a plebiscite, and with 
him as king he predicted a liberal rule. Here was a 
bow to the democratic tendencies of the time from an 
absolutist advocate. He was answered by a ' Demo- 
crat,' Beccara, who sustains with a peculiar solecism of 
nomenclature the monarchical form and the Serrano 
republican, revolutionary regency. He thought that 
Serrano only could give full force to liberty by 
consummating the revolution of which he was the 
hero. After him, Castellar, the gifted republican 
orator, ' took the word,' and, with his usual brilliance 
and fertility of historical resources, electrified the 



The Cortes perpetuates itself. 417 



Cortes. He analyzed and enlarged on the difficulties 
in the establishment of a monarchy, paid a handsome 
tribute to Serrano, and hoped that the revolution 
would be accomplished and liberty subserved without 
a monarchy. Then the vote was taken — 194 to 45 
for the Regency and Serrano. 

Spain has, therefore, an Executive, under the iifth 
title of her organic law, with all the functions of a 
king, except that it cannot dissolve the Cortes or sus- 
pend its sessions. The Cortes, like other parliamentary 
bodies in history, takes care to perpetuate itself. 

Then General Prim had his grand performance. 
The troops of Madrid, 20,000 in number, must take 
the oath to the constitution. They are drawn up in 
line in the Prado and in the promenade of the Atocha. 
There Prim presents himself before their regimental 
banners. He cries out in a high key, and he has a 
sonorous voice : ' You swear to guard faithfully and 
loyally the constitution of the Spanish monarchy, 
decreed and sanctioned by the Cortes of 1869?' All 
the officers and men enthusiastically answer, 'We 
swear!' Prim then rejoins : 'If this you do, God and 
the nation will recompense you ; if not, they will call 
you to account ! ' He then fixes some ribbons on 
the banners to commemorate the ceremony. Then the 
troops are reviewed by him amidst the immense con- 
course. Cannon roar till long after nightfall. 

The day is done ! The Spanish capital is pleased 
with these frequent appeals to their eye and ear. The 
crowds kept it up till long after honest people should 
have been abed. Strange to say, Madrid seems never 
to sleep, unless by day, like the owl. The newspapers 
are issued about ten at night. The streets then begin 
to be thronged. The shrill voices of women news- 
venders begin. La Correspondencia ! is sung with a 
Castilian ring, and seems to have the noisest vendors 

2 E 



41 8 Night ttirned into Day at Madrid, 



and the most frequent vendees. It is a little paper, 
badly printed, with plenty of news in short paragraphs, 
and the latest telegrams. It has a sort of semi-official 
authority, or, at least, authentic sources of informa- 
tion. Some twenty other papers, all small, a good 
many of them comically intended, called The Cat, 
Don Quixote^ The Padre^ The Mosquito^ &:c., are 
screeched, buzzed, hawked, and circulated about till 
morning. While at Madrid, at my hotel near the 
'Gate of the Sun,' where men most do congregate 
after eleven at night, the tumult of the city concen- 
trates and continues till daylight! It is as if night 
were turned into day for social, peripatetic, political, 
and journalistic purposes. 

Two months' sojourn in Spain and much observa- 
tion of her politics have made me somewhat suspicious 
of the permanency of the present arrangement, in some 
measure because parties are so indistinctly defined and 
combinations may be made so readily and disastrously. 
There are many inflammable questions. For instance, 
some of the bravest and most honoured of the generals 
are Republicans. General Prim had to say, in answer to 
a question in the Cortes, that if they did not swear 
to the constitution off their names would go from 
the army rolls ! This was not balm to the wounds of 
the Republicans. Another, and the most perilous, ques- 
tion is that of finance. It is estimated that there will 
be a deficiency of many millions of dollars this year. 
The present government inherited from that of Isabella 
a large deficit. It was compelled to make new loans 
under difficulties. The finance minister must look the 
further fact in the face that his revenues are failing. I 
do not count this fact as at all ominous for Spain. 
Better have a revenue too small for the expenditure 
than vice versa. What Spain wants is economy. She 
never had it, nor could have it, under her previous 



Spanish Progress, 419 



governments. They were the results of court and 
miUtary intrigues. They were fomented and fed by — 
spoils. Narvaez and O'Donnell — O'Donnell and Nar- 
vaez — these, for years past, were the expensive and 
disastrous oscillations of the political pendulum. The 
people have found out recently, by the free discussions 
of forum and press, what it costs, and ought to cost, 
to carry on a government in the Peninsula of sixteen 
millions of people. The disbursements have been in 
excess of receipts by several millions. It cost an 
enormous outlay to collect and disburse these sums. 
Figuerola opposes such extravagances. But in spite of 
all these financial portents, Spain is advancing. The 
last decade shows an increase of population of over a 
million. The children are better educated. It is said, 
that whereas at the beginning of the century only one 
in 340 was educated, now there is one in every fifteen. 
I know it is the custom of travellers to depreciate 
Spain. They laugh at her pretensions and ridicule her 
performance. They sneer at her religion, and, in 
their hurried transit and superficial observation in 
the peninsula, see nothing but poverty, laziness, and 
beggars ; but Spain is growing. She cannot grow 
worse. The leaven of progress has entered the lump. 
The country is peaceful and orderly. I was struck 
with the perfect decorum everywhere, even amidst the 
wild excitements incident to the past few months. 
Her volunteer militia are a stable security to keep the 
peace. But this orderly condition is owing to the 
provincial and municipal governments. Make a note 
of that, ye rulers of discontented states and people ! Sup- 
pose the treasury is empty, and its credit down ; suppose 
bankruptcy stares the nation in the face ; suppose 
Isabella, or Don Carlos, do make disaffection here and 
there — yet Spain, like other nations I wot of, is improv- 
ing in spite of certain well-defined drawbacks. These 

2 E 2 



420 Spanish Emigres. 



drawbacks are the slinking, cowardly self-exile of her 
nobles and rich families. They have run from her 
troubles to spend their time and money in inglorious 
ease at St. Sebastian, Paris, or Biarritz. Trade, there- 
fore, languishes in many of the large places, as at 
Murcia and Saragossa. Again, it is said that Spain 
has had to import 50,000,000 dollars worth of grain 
to feed her people the past year. This fact would 
seem incredible to one who has seen the breadth of 
land, yellow for the sickle, the past two months 
from Andalusia to Biscay. Notwithstanding the 
departure of her rich fugitives, her outlay for foreign 
bread — and other impediments — still Spain grows. 
Her fite days are still as numerous and as well 
attended; her public displays are still as gorgeous and 
imposing ; her bull fights are still patronised as numer- 
ously and as noisily ; her hospitals and churches are 
still supported abundantly ; and all she wants is that 
fixed tranquillity which a substantial civil government, 
reposing on popular liberty and private right, can 
insure. Then she may begin a new career and grow 
with more blossom and fruit. Under such a rule there 
would be no foreign wheat imported ; the waters which 
the Moor managed to direct into fruitful highways 
and byways would soon fill the land with plenty ; for 
labour is not wanting, nor is it reluctant among the 
population of Spain. When she has this new order I 
will not reprehend the guitar and the dance. They 
need not be abolished, because Spain becomes more 
industrious and free. The tauromachian heroes and 
gentry might and would be a little less patronized 
under a better system, which would insure to industry 
its prompt and proper reward. The gaudily capari- 
soned mules — which, every Sabbath, drag out the dead 
horses by the score, and dead bulls by the dozen — 
from the arena, amidst the shouts of the populace — 



Visit to the Escurial. 42 1 

might do something better than such unproductive 
Sabbath work. Instead of fructifying a few feet of the 
soil by their carcases, the horses and bulls might be 
utilized for more remunerative agricultural purposes. 

To the end of stimulating the industry and enter- 
prise of Spain, it has been suggested to hold a grand 
exhibition. The Escurial is named as the place. It 
would be a magnificent site, and the idea is excellent. 
Besides, it satisfies the Spanish desire for congregating 
and enjoying themselves en bloc. 

Upon the Saturday before we left Madrid, we made 
a visit to the Escurial. The journey is two hours from 
Madrid, on the Northern Railway. It passes through 
a bleak and uninhabited country. The road rises 
until at the Escurial it is at least 2700 feet above the 
sea. Nothing, hardly a flock of sheep, attracts atten- 
tion on the way, until at length we see a mighty mass 
of granite. It is an edifice with glassless windows, and 
at first sight seems empty of all that is alluring and 
comfortable. This is the Escurial, the mausoleum of 
Spain's dead royalty. It is monastery and cloister — 
palace and minster — all in one ; and that one utterly 
and sublimely dreary ! Here are entombed the mortal 
remains of Charles V. and Philip II., the proudest and 
greatest of Spanish kings. Here, under the savage 
shadows of the Sierra de Guadarama, stands this 
shadowy shell of magnificence. It is of itself a gloomy 
shadow of the gloomiest of Spanish potentates. So 
far removed from human life and its ebb and flow, it 
awes one by its very isolation. How lonely ! How 
sad ! I never visited a place where everything so con- 
tributed to the heaviness of the associations ; every- 
thing — but the happy company with whom we made 
the visit. The building is a rectangular parallelogram, 
nearly 600 by 800 feet. It boasts of mi windows 
outside and 1562 inside, 1200 doors, 16 courts, 15 



422 Philip 11, Founder of the Escurial. 

cloisters, 86 staircases, 89 fountains, 3000 feet of 
frescoe painting, and some 90 miles of — promenad- 
ing ! It was erected by the second Philip, whose sour 
and gloomy visage, and gray, cold eye chill you from 
the canvas as does that of Charles V., opposite to him, 
in the palace which the former built to honour and 
entomb the latter. 

Alighting at the depot, we find, as it is Saturday, 
that there is a crowd. They at once take possession 
of the omnibuses and carriages. We, therefore, must 
walk up the hill, a mile nearly, to the palace. All is 
rock and desolation above and around, save this walk. 
Happily, as the sun is out, there are on the way grate- 
ful shade trees and stone seats. The cathedral we first 
visit. It is enormous in size, and produces something 
of the awe-inspiring effect of St. Peter's. It is without 
the ornamentation of the latter, and it fails to satisfy 
the taste. The dome is fine. The paintings of value 
have been removed to Madrid. Indeed, why not 
remove all beautiful associations hence ? The storms 
of wind and rain, the storms of war — French and civil 
war — the storms of bankruptcy — civil and ecclesiastical 
— all the storms, have burst upon this grand, gray 
" eighth wonder of the world ; " and nothing of serene 
beauty or gentle repose is left, or ought to be left. 
The very images of the Hebrew kings in the great 
court ; the figures in the great picture of the Judgment 
(great in the size of its canvas) in the church; the 
very cofhns and urns in the vault, where are the bones 
of Charles V., Philip II., and their descendants, and 
where there is one niche still for Isabella — which she 
does not come forward to claim — all seem to take the 
prevailing dreariness, as if from the heart, soul, mind, 
and features of the severe and gloomy founder of the 
Escurial, Philip 11. Paradoxically the tomb is the 
most cheerful of all the objects. This Pantheon, as it 



His Illness and Death, 423 



is called, is also the most interesting place in the 
Escurial. It is something to have seen the cinerary- 
urns of great potentates. There is an amour propre 
about each person which arrogates to itself a borrowed 
dignity from the departed royalty. In this crypt there 
are six rows of niches, and six urns in each row. The 
death-chamber is lofty. The top is lined with black 
and red and other coloured marbles. It has not a very 
sepulchral look. It is gaudy with bronze. It is im- 
mediately under the high altar. The celebrant, when 
he elevates the host, raises it immediately over the dead. 
In descending the wide, yellow, jasper staircase, one 
must take care. The marble is polished and is slippery 
with wax from the tapers. The pathway that leads to 
the tomb is ever slippery ; but to this tomb exceed- 
ingly so. The great chandelier, the gilt ornamenta- 
tion, and the poor paintings do not impress one so 
funereally. Indeed, another Philip did this part of the 
business. The second Philip planned a tomb of the 
humblest dimensions and the gloomiest character. 
Immediately above, in the church, or in the oratories, 
on each side of the great altar, some of the kings and 
queens who are buried below appear in full effigy, 
kneeling before the King of Kings. The effect is 
more impressively serious there than in the decorated 
tombs below in the vault. 

Three mortal hours afoot we trudged through these 
deserted halls. In the palace there was some relief. 
The rooms are hung with tapestry, rather bright ; but 
old tapestry is never at best very cheerful. Then, 
there are three little gems of rooms in ' marqueterie ' 
and gold and silver trimmings. The ladies were here 
in raptures. Old cabinets, old clocks, embroidered 
silks — all these are the ushers to the little gloomy side- 
rooms. Here Philip II. sat to hear mass when sick. 
A little door opened here into the church. It was 



424 A Jtcbilee of Industry stiggested, 

here that he died that lingering death which has been 
represented as so remorseful and terrible. They show 
us his chair in which he sat in summer ; then the one 
in which he sat in winter ; then the chair whereon 
he rested his lame foot ; and then the stain of the oil 
from its bandages. All these are shown, and we retire 
satisfied. 

I have no room or time to tell of the many corridors 
and courts ; of the pretty box-rows in the flower- 
gardens, which you may see from the windows of the 
palace portion of the Escurial ; nor of the fountains, 
the pretty temple, the statues of the Apostles, some, 
alas ! partly gone to decay, and others going entirely ; 
or of the little palace in the garden, for the 'spoiled 
child ' of royalty, and all its exquisite paintings and 
decorations. Even this did not relieve the heaviness 
of the granitic scene and its sombre surroundings. A 
library, which is to me ever a cheerful spot, where 
' hourly I converse with kings and emperors ' — calling 
their victories, if unjustly got, to a strict account, like 
the ' Elder Brother ' of Beaumont and Fletcher — was 
here very repellent. All the books, dressed in their 
toilette of pig-skin, turn their backs from us, and re- 
fuse to show us even their titles, as it were to relieve us 
from the sorrowing sight of so many dead titles and 
names, and useless works. 

Far better would it be to change this monster mass 
of granite and mortar from its dull mortuary purposes- 
into something else. Where the half monkish King 
Philip ruled with so severe a sceptre, let the gay 
Spanish people — for the present by their own grace 
sovereign — come to a jubilee of industry within the 
courts of their dead oppressors. Let the wine and oil, 
the grain and marbles, the pictures and statues, all art, 
science, labour, skill, and wisdom which Spain hath, 
here be gathered ! Aye, even then and there let the 



Cornelio, the Blind Guide of the Escurial. 425 

guitar twang, the Castanet click, and the tambourine 
resound to the steps of dancing feet ! No better dedi- 
cation of the Escurial can be made. And all the 
world, of Europe at least, which regards Spain as apart 
from its routes and its interests, may be tempted to 
come, see, admire, and — invest ! 

As we leave the Escurial a crowd of beggars 
approach. One of the beggar boys addresses me in a 
confidential, ironical way, pointing to a tatterdemalion 
in a rusty cloak, hiding a skirtless body. ' That^ SeTtor, 
that is, or rather is not, the so7i of the blind Corneliof 
Well, as I had not known that Cornelio was thus 
optically afflicted, or that he lived hereabouts, or had 
a son at all, or that, in fact, there was any such person 
as Cornelio, blind or otherwise, now or ever, I asked : 
' Who in the — name — of curiosity is Cornelio ? ' ' He 
is the false guide, Seizor, against zvhom all are to 
beware ! ' ' Ah ! what does he do to travellers ? Shut 
them up in dark crypts or haunted cloisters ; starve 
them in lonely rooms, under spring locks, or under 
granite basements ; or drop them neatly into unseen 
cisterns, from which cometh no sound or bubble ? Or 
in unfrequented paths doth he plant the perfidious 
poniard beneath the unsuspecting rib ? ' ' None of 
these, Senor. He imposes on toicrists by representing 
himself to be what he is not ; for the veteran Cornelio, 
seizor, the royal guide of guides of the Escurial, died 
in 1863, unmarried and childless!'' This was the 
climax of the Escurial desolation. I dropped a figura- 
tive tear over the childless blind Cornelio, and a peseta 
into the outstretched itching palm of my garrulous 
informant. 

How pleasantly we spent the hours on returning to 
Madrid ; how the evening wore away at the Minister's 
hospitable home in cheerful chat with the cordial 
Nuncio of the Pope, whom I had the honour there to 



426 - - Joseph Bonaparte. 



meet ; how the next day we visited the royal palace — 
but that must be told ; and yet what is there new to 
tell of palaces ? As one parlour is like another at home; 
as a face is the counterpart of that which it reflects in 
the mirror, so is one palace in Europe very like to all 
the rest. Tapestry, pictures, malachite, mosaic tables, 
statues and candelabra; old clocks, escritoires, and 
bedsteads, &:c. ; but there is something magnificent in 
this palace of Madrid, as I recall it. Not the like- 
ness of Narvaez, nor of the recent royal family who 
lived here ; not the peculiar white stone of Colmenar, 
of which it is built ; nor the stone statues of the royal 
line, adorning the Plaza del Oriente opposite ; not 
because Joseph Bonaparte (of Bordentown, New 
Jersey, formerly) here lived a brief time as king ; not 
because Wellington drove him hence after the battle 
of Salamanca, and lodged here in this palace; not the 
rich and precious marbles (in which, indeed, all parts 
of Spain are so opulent) in floor and doorway ; not 
the crystal chandeliers, colossal looking-glasses ; not 
the mediocre frescoes, illustrating the dead majesty of 
Spain ; not the apotheosis of kings on the ceiling, and 
the rare china work, as brittle as the apotheosis with 
which the walls are decorated ; not the views from the 
windows — for there has been no Moor at Madrid to 
decorate the hills with verdurous loveliness ; not the 
royal library of 100,000 volumes, to which now no 
bookworm except the moth hath access ; none of 
these interested me, for I have been palled with their 
iteration. What I looked at in this palatial museum 
with v/onder and interest were the splendid paintings 
upon wall and ceiling, especially those in fresco, of 
Spanish America. The new world — new Spain — 
every part of her once proud and rich empire — here, 
in a prouder day, was drawn and coloured by the hand 
of genius. The commentary is to be found at this 



I 



The Convent of Aiocka, 427 



day, in her struggle to hold the last of her trans- 
atlantic possessions. 

There is much beside to describe at Madrid. The 
Armoury, where the mediaeval age of arms is illus- 
trated; where one may see Columbus, Cortes, and 
Pizarro in their own armour, on horseback or foot, as 
you may please. Then there is the convent of the 
Atocha. That merits a better notice. Why? Not 
because it is a convent, for, of late, convents generally 
have become uninteresting in Spain. In fact, they 
have been under the law mostly suppressed. But this 
is a place held very sacred, for many reasons. It- was 
built by the confessor to Charles V, It was rich — 
was once, but is not now — in gold and silver. It has 
had the fate of war and pillage. To the chapel of 
Atocha Ferdinand VII. came to worship. So did his 
daughter, the deposed queen. She used to drive here 
in great style, drawn by eight mules, with husband and 
children. It was here that the attempt was made on 
her life by a crazed monk with a dagger. In wandering 
about its now empty cloisters — once full of Dominican 
friars, and of holy zeal and life, one cannot but remark 
the effect of the revolution in unsettling the reverence 
for royalty. The custodians joke and smile at the 
exiled queen ; they laugh as they tell us the govern- 
ment has an inventory of this and every other religious 
place in Spain. But the reverence for this place is 
not entirely gone. General Prim chose it as the place 
for the oath to the constitution which he administered 
to his soldiers. It is regarded as an especial honour to 
be buried here. 

While wandering about the cloisters and walls of the 
Convent of Atocha, I found the tomb of Marshal 
Narvaez, Duke of Valencia, who died in April, 1868, 
and whose gross, sensual, imperious features I saw the 
day before yesterday in full-length frame in the Queen's 



428 Tombs of Narvaez and O'Donnell. 

apartments at the palace. He was a red-faced, strong- 
bodied man. He sleeps within the same walls as his 
great rival, O'Donnell! With no effigy, no monu- 
ment, no display, the great minister — of Irish descent 
as his name indicates — lies here interred. Only this 
inscription marks his resting-place : ' Enteramiento del 
Exmo. {Excellentisshno^ Senor D, Leopoldo C Donnelly 
Duque de Tetuan {Morocco), fallecio in Biarritz el 
dia 5 de Noviembre de 1867.' This was all. Change 
the name of the Hiberno-Iberian statesman, one 
letter only, and you have O'Connell ; change the locus 
in quo of sepulture from Madrid to Ireland ; and, lo ! 
what a contrast between the great minister of the now 
exiled Queen in his almost nameless tomb, and that of 
the Great Commoner of the Irish isle, honoured by a 
nation of fervid hearts. Only yesterday did I read that 
after a quarter of a century, an imposing ceremonial 
was performed in Glasnevin Cemetery, when the 
remains of Daniel O'Connell were removed to a crypt 
under the Round Tower ! A requiem mass — a fervid 
oration — the presence of cardinal and bishops and 
thousands of Irishmen. These were the witnesses of 
the great virtues still perpetuated in remembrance as 
characterising O'Connell. The little inscription in the 
Atocha convent is all that marks the memory of 
the now hated and almost despised minister of royal 
spites and despotic power ! 

There are many excursions to be made around 
Madrid, besides the one to the Escurial. Indeed, 
after the month of June, excursions are indispensable. 
There are baths in the mountains near the confluence 
of the Tagus with the Cifuentes, called the Baths of 
Trillo ; there are baths also at Sacedon, famous from 
Roman days, and now much resorted to. You may, 
in a few hours, reach La Granja, where the thermo- 
meter is about 68 degrees in mid-summer when it is 



Abolition of the Salic Law. 429 



83 degrees in Madrid. This was the Queen's favourite 
resort. It is nearly 3000 feet above the sea, while 
there is still above it a mountain, La Penalara, three 
times that height. The scenery is Alpine. Here 
Philip V. built his farm-house — La Grange. Here he 
would live ; here he abdicated and afterwards resumed 
the throne ; here he died ; and here he chose to be 
buried. His French affiliation made him dislike the 
Austrian associations of Spanish royalty, and so he 
would not allow his corpus defimctum to sleep in 
the company which we have seen holding their Court 
of Death in the Pantheon of the Escurial. Here, at 
La Grange, Godoy, the ' black-eyed boy,' immortalized 
by ' Childe Harold,' signed the treaty which made 
Spain, for a time, a fief of France. Here the father 
of the exiled Queen, in September, 1 83 2, promulgated 
a decree abolishing the Salic law, and made Isabella 
heiress to the throne. From this little source in the 
mountain has thus sprung a devastating torrent of civil 
affliction. 

I should be flagrantly unjust if I did not, before 
quitting Madrid, at least refer to its museum. It is, 
beyond doubt, the finest collection of paintings in the 
world. It had such patrons, such wealth, and such 
artists that every school of early and modern art re- 
ceived here warm welcome. Not for its architecture 
or founders did I care to visit it again and again. 
Architecture had better samples to show in Spain, and 
its founders have other more fitting monuments. But 
at the new dawn of art, when the finest flush of talent 
overspread the European horizon ; when Titian, Velas- 
quez, and Rubens were honoured in the palaces of 
Spain ; when Murillo, Van Dyck, Claude, Canos, Paul 
Veronese, Teniers, and Albert Durer gave new splendour 
to churches and palaces ; when Andalusia gave her 
Oriental imagination to Murillo and Velasquez — and 



I 



430 Miirillo and the Renaissance. 



Raphael and Titian gave their genius to the Continent ; 
then there was in Spain a generous enthusiasm in the 
encouragement of painting which has not since been 
known, and has never been surpassed. This Museum 
is for Spain what the Medici Chapel, or the Patti 
Palace, is for Italy. It marks the era in the world of 
Art — and, I may add, of letters and commerce, which 
the biographer of Lorenzo, the magnificent, thus 
analyses : — ' The close of the fifteenth and the begin- 
ning of the sixteenth century, comprehend one of 
those periods of history which are entitled to our 
minutest study and inquiry. Almost all the great 
events from which Europe derives its present advantages 
are to be traced up to those times. The invention of 
the art of printing, the discovery of the great Western 
Continent, the schism from the Church of Rome, 
which ended in the reformation of many of its abuses 
and established the precedent of reform, the degree of 
perfection attained in the fine arts, and the final intro- 
duction of the principles of criticism and taste, compose 
such an illustrious assemblage of luminous points as 
cannot fail of attracting for ages the curiosity and 
admiration of mankind.' 

It was a splendid ordination of Providence that 
Murillo and his compeers should have been contempo- 
raneous with this dawn of Art. 

When Murillo arose — the Chaucer, or rather the 
Spenser, of Spanish Painting — there were many to 
applaud and there was much to encourage, but 'the 
soul of Adonais, like a star,' waited long for a throne. 
At length Madrid erected one. It is in the Museum. 
There are to be found forty-six Murillos, sixty-four 
Velasquez, ten Raphaels, and forty-three Titians ; what 
a company of Olympians ! Are they not all ' Grand 
Masters ' ? 

In another museum of San Fernando there are 



The Birthplace of the Poet Martial. 43 1 

several Murillos, and among them the ' Artist's Dream,' 
so celebrated as the representation of sleep. It is the 
ideal realized in the artist's own family, for the features 
and forms are copied from his Andalusian wife and 
relatives ; but the dream is beyond conception unreal 
and tranquil. It is the story of the Roman patrician, 
who dreamed of the building of the Santa Maria 
Church at Rome. The Virgin appears to point out 
the spot for its erection. There is a companion picture, 
painted in Murillo's vaporoso style, in which the lines 
are not so well defined, but the sweet hues and charm- 
ing forms are blended as if under some spell of enchant- 
ment. Many of these pictures have had their heroic 
experiences. They have been prisoners of war, have 
been exchanged, and returned home. 

But I must linger no longer at Madrid, not even 
with my pen and memory. I must travel, where the 
portly Isabella trod before, en route to France. Leaving 
my Murillos to be packed (copies I mean), and the 
charming originals in museum and chapel ; leaving 
mv heart with those wonderful orisiinals and with our 
kind friends at Madrid ; leaving the Spanish capital in 
a state of excitement, which scarcely ever subsides, we 
arrange for a night ride toward the Pyrenees, with 
Saragossa for our objective point. 

What we passed by — at Alcala, once a proud seat 
of learning, fostered by Ximenes, now its light ex- 
tinguished ; what at Guadalajara, so full of memories 
of Moors and of Mendoza — is in the dark. To sleep, 
perchance to dream, through those enchanted realms, 
ever}^ mile of which has a histor}^ or a romance, is 
more of a necessit}^ than a pleasure, as most of the 
trains in Spain are nocturnal — to avoid the heat. We 
awake at Calatayud. We are on genuine Aragonese 
soil and in one of the genuine towns. This was the 
birthplace of the Roman poet Martial, but we did not 



432 Costume of the Aragonese, 

think of him. At the depot, and along the route, we 
began to see the peasants in their native costumes. 
Knee-breeches take the place of pantaloons. Broad 
brims take the place of head handkerchief, velvet 
sombrero, and Phrygian cap. Broad silken, gaudy- 
sashes all the men wear ; and the red kirtle and blue 
boddice are worn by the Aragonese women. They are 
as picturesque as any painter could wish for, as sisters 
or ' sitters ' for the ' Maid of Saragossa.' 




f 



OTTERY AT 



yVlADRll 



1 



( 433 ) 




CHAPTER XXIII. 

SARAGOSSA—THE MAID—OVER THE BORDER^ 
OUT OF SPAIN, 

E reached Saragossa early in the morning. 
As we alight at the depot and drive to the 
hotels my eye glances about for the ' Maid.' 
It was a strictly historical optic. I saw her. 
My first glance was at her bronze figure at the public 
fountain, where, in graceful posture, she is for ever 
emptying water from an upturned classic pitcher. 
Besides, I saw her in photograph, as we rode by, in 
the narrow streets. I bought pictures of her firing off 
a cannon, while the dead lover lay near, weltering in 
his blood. I knew that she was an artillery-man, but 
I was not prepared for the anachronism of her photo- 
graph. Perhaps it was a spiritualist one. I saw her (or 
her descendants) carrying babies about ; for the ' Maid 
of Saragossa' is a mother now. I saw her bearing on 
her head a basket of clothes to the brink of the Ebro, 
for a day's washing. I saw her with her face tied up 
as with the tooth-ache or mumps. Finally, I saw her 
at work in one of the cool, stony houses on the first 
floor, of a narrow street, with one of Wheeler and 
Wilson's American sewing-machines ! The heroine of 
Saragossa, plying her plump little satined foot, and 
using the heroic glance of her death-defying eye upon 
a Yankee sewing-machine I Well ! well ! all I can do, 
is to present her, as she was and is. 

What of the maid ! Is she a myth ? Does she 

2 F 



434 Heroic Sons and Daughters of Saragossa. 



vanish when you approach her home ? Saragossa, 
from Roman days — from earliest Christian days — from 
the early wars with Goth and Frank and Moor — and 
later in the French wars of 1707 — and later still in the 
Napoleonic wars, was brave to the very death and 
starvation point ! Free, beyond all other Spanish 




The Maid of Saragossa. 

provinces — having 2iftiero — or magna charta, or decla- 
ration of independence of her own ; having, in fact, 
republican liberty, with a congress of four branches, 
each a check on the others, and all jealous of monar- 
chical prerogative and encroachment. Aragon, whose 
capital Saragossa was, became renowned for the bravery, 
persistence, and chivalry of her sons, in which pa- 
triotic attributes her daughters shared. 

What of the 'Maid'? Byron writes that the 
enemies of Spain were ' foiled by a woman's hand 
before a battered wall ; ' and adds, in a note, that, 
' When the author was at Seville, she daily walked on 



Story of the Maid of Saragassa. 435 



the Prado, decorated with medals and orders, by com- 
majid of the Junta.' We did not see her — perhaps ; 
but we saw many of her sisters, or her progeny. We 
went to the battered -wall, near the north-west gate. 
There you will see the place where she fought by her 
lover's side. There, when he fell, she took the flaming 
match. There she worked the thunderous gun ! Prose 
fails to tell what I would. I therefore quote the 
poet : — 

' Is it for this the Spanish maid, arous'd, 

Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar — 
And, all unsex'd, the Anlace hath espoused. 
Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war ? 

Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale, 

Oh ! had you known her in her softer hour, 
Mark'd her black eye, that mocks her coal-black veil ; 

Heard her light, lively tones in lady's bower. 
Seen her long locks, that foil the painter's power, 

Her fairy form, with more than female grace, 
Scarce would you deem that Saragoza's tower 

Beheld her smile in danger's Gorgon face. 

Her lover sinks — she sheds no ill-timed tear ; 

Her chief is slain— she fills his fatal post. 
Her fellows flee — she checks their base career ; 

The foe retires — she leads the sallying host : 
Who can appease, like her, a lover's ghost ? 
Who can avenge so well a leader's fall ? ' 

This is all very well ; but it is due to truth to say that 
her legitimate business was to sell cooling drinks. 
However, she has gained, by fighting Frenchmen, an 
immortality for bravery in Aragon which has been 
shared by a few others of her sex. In the famous 
sieges of the city there are recounted many stories of 
heroic devotion like hers, and among the photographs 
we bring home are those of two other heroines who 
fought in the early wars for the safety of their homes 
and city. 
. Saragossa is a republican city. As I said on a 

2 F 2 



436 Funeral of Monarchy, 



former occasion, on the Sunday before we came, there 
were 10,000 people in the Plaza del Toros to bury 
the crown. That was on the day when they were 
proclaiming the monarchy at Madrid. Along the 
walls, as we rode to the hotel, we saw posted in large 
letters, ' Funeral ! All invited to the obsequies ! ' 
We noticed that the soldiers here were very plentiful, 
and early and late were displaying themselves in drill 
and otherwise. We drove round the walls ; thence 
out into the country to the falls and canals, where the 
Ebro River, uniting with the waters of the Great Canal 
of Aragon, furnished this part of Spain with creative 
irrigating water power. People were gathering their 
grain, or directing the water into its channels of irriga- 
tion. The great plain was all green with verdure, or 
yellow with the ripe harvest. There are beggars in 
plenty; but the people, especially the peasants, are 
industrious and well off. In their red plaid shawls, 
knee breeches, wooden shoes, and independent air, we 
find that we are nearing the mountains : for the 
mountaineers of Aragon are not unknown to history 
for their defiant love of independence and their ability 
to maintain it. The ' Maid ' has left many descendants 
worthy of her pluck. 

It was hard to leave Saragossa. We were in fact 
driven thence by the heat, and we press ardently for 
the French frontiers. As we pass through Navarre 
and then into Biscay, the glorious Pyrenees appear 
in their misty mantles, and begin to fling their cool 
shadows from their snowy tops upon us. The fields 
of Navarre and Biscay are picturesque with women at 
work. They wear their broad hats tied close under 
their chin, and in violently red gowns they blaze like 
big animated poppies over the fields. We are yet to 
. hear the Basque people talk ! It is conceded that 
Adam talked^Basque. The primeval guttural of the 



Isabellas last Spanish Breakfast. 437 



natives of Biscay is proverbial. In the other provinces, 
the Spaniards say, ' The Basque folks write " Solomon " 
— and pronounce it " N ebtichadnezzar I " ' The houses 
on our route still remind us of Africa ; for the Moors 
have been here also. Where have they not been ? 
These houses have square windows, and look for- 
bidding beside the deep, green, cultivated valleys in 
which they are placed. We pass many spurs of the 
Pyrenees, as the tunnels indicate. Swiss cottages appear 
in Biscay. The country begins to lose its calcined, 
desolate appearance. It becomes sylvan, in its green 
groves and running waters, and flocks of sheep and 
goats. We look for Pan and his pipe. All that we 
have heard of these beautiful intervales is more than 
realized. We watch the panorama of cultivated loveli- 
ness till the evening comes on to melt all outlines into 
one harmoniously beautiful scene. 

Then appears in a dusky light St. Sebastian, where 
Isabella ate her last Spanish breakfast. In fancy, if 
not in reality, she had bid hurried adieux to her palaces 
at La Granja, Aranjuez, and Madrid ; and here, upon 
the frontier of a foreign land and a new home, she who 
ruled by defrauding her cousin Charles of his (so-called) 
right, and by the forced repeal of the ancient law of 
descent; she who ruled, too, in defiance of decency, 
of the people, and of God — here bid a long and last fare- 
well to all her greatness. ' These are bad times for us,' 
she said to a friend who bid her good bye at the railway 
station. Compressing her lips and hiding her eyes, to 
conceal her depression and her tears, the same railway 
which bore plebeian and peasant, carried the last 
Spanish Bourbon over the border. 

As we enter St. Sebastian, the lofty green mountain, 
surmounted by a splendid fort — the scene of many a 
battle — rises on the left. We are in the town, and 
amidst the noises, nurses, and children of the beautiful 



438 Biarritz. 



promenades of this finest of watering-places. Groves 
are all about us, and promenades in plenty. The dusty, 
hot ride of the day is forgotten in the beautiful 
prospects. Soon we pass through rocky, mountainous 
defiles, and are at Hendaye, just on the border. The 
Pyrenees are pierced ! Our trunks are searched. A 
grim Spanish Custom-house officer says to me : ' Any 
cigars, caballero ? ' ' No.' ' Pass ! — no, stop ! What 
is in that long box ? ' Now that was my box of 
Murillos. It looked formidable and suspicious. It 
had been taken once for a coffin. I related succinctly 
that it held pictures. He doubted. He was about to 
open it, when a superior officer came and stopped him. 
The inferior said that he thought it might contain — 
arms ! Arms^ — to be carried out of Spain and into 
France ! What for ? I was not able to solve this 
strategico-political problem before the cars hurried us 
to that beautiful spot on the Bay of Biscay — Biarritz ! 
I have not solved it since. 

Out of Spain ! Snugly ensconced in the uttermost 
south-western corner of France, with the proud peaks 
of the Pyrenees along the coast to the west and to the 
south, with the Bay of Biscay making a right angle 
here with the coast line — if one angle there is right, 
where all is so crooked and rugged — and with the 
sweetest refreshment of air from the sea, we begin, 
here and now, to realize that we are out of Spain ! 
The Sunbeams of the Peninsula began to warm and 
warn. Thereupon we came to the north and to the sea- 
side. Looking out upon the west, with the waves slightly 
curling and capped with white, the mind turns to the 
home-land beyond — beyond — beyond ! There are all 
our hopes and loves.- We seem nearer to them now than 
at any time in our travels. Upon the shore are a score 
or more of unshapely masses of isolated rock, under, 
over, and on which the sea pounds and froths, and 



In the Bay of Biscay^ O ! 439 

under which, even on calm days, it sulks and roars. 
These rocks furnish a breakwater for the harbour and 
smooth the sanded bathing beach. These caves are 
the counterfeit presentment of those of the Jersey Isle, 
where Victor Hugo's sea-toiling hero found the devil- 
fish, or the devil-hsh found him. Along the shore are 
the villas of the French nobles and millionnaires ; and 
there, on that hill by the shore, is the newly-fashioned 
palace, or lodge, where the Emperor and Empress of 
France summer away the solstice in (perhaps) measure- 
less content. Beyond it still, on the route to Bayonne, 
is the tall, white light-house, nearly 300 feet high, from 
which you may perceive the slight line of yellow sand, 
running far out into the sea, and helping to make 
the harbour of Bayonne ' in the Bay of Biscay, O ! ' 
and the line of the Pyrenees, running from the sea 
far to the inland in one grand continuous line of 
loftiness ! 

Wandering amidst the palace pleasure-grounds by 
the lakes, and (by permission) through the palace 
itself — just fitting up, and soon to be occupied — or 
driving along the beautiful road to Bayonne, shaded 
with pines, and to the lakes in the rear of Biarritz, and 
through the (so-called) Bois de Boulogne ; mingling 
with the fishermen on the shore and going with them 
in their little shells of boats far out into the open sea, 
trolling as we go, and in lieu of luck, watching the 
porpoises flounder, flop, and wallow like hogs — cochons 
de mer^ as they are well named ; strolling and clamber- 
ing over the straggling rocks, which are anchored to 
the sounding shore by the neatest of fairy-arched 
bridges ; seeing the new faces, mostly Spanish (absent 
from the home perils of revolution), with nurses and 
babies ; observing the throngs sauntering and sunning 
themselves along the beach, or the bathers, young and 
old, of both sexes, rejoicing under the sweet sun and in 



440 Biarritz the Peart of a S^tmmer Resort, 



the glad waves — thus have the days gone by since we 
pierced the Pyrenees. Most dehghtfully ; for Biarritz 
is by nature and art the very pearl of a summer 
resort. From the verandah or terrace in front of the 
palace not only is there the finest sea view, but the 
freshest air which ever salt sea gave to the famishing 
lung. 

And yet one cannot always linger here, even amidst 
the Sweet Sunbeams, nor dwell on what surrounds 




Pierced Rock at Biarritz. 



Biarritz. Indeed, my mind has not yet been relieved 
of its memories of Spain. I love to be on the sand of 
the shore or on the grass by the lakes, and paint my 
castles in Spain with fancy's pencil. The political 
excitements which come from Paris, and which quicken 
the newsmongers here in this far corner of the empire, 
scarcely interest me — at least not yet ; for the Spanish 



Dynasty of Lonis Napoleon. 441 



interest is yet unabated. I should not be surprised to 
hear at any time of fresh troubles and new complica- 
tions, even of a sanguinary kind, in Spain. Not in 
Madrid; but at Malaga, Seville, and Cadiz, where 
there is much rampant dissatisfaction with the present 
arrangement. No one seems to fear that the dynasty 
of Louis Napoleon will be disturbed by the anentes at 
Paris. They are the froth of the elections. France, 
more than Spain, has been solidified and compacted in 
her polity and policy. Spain is yet in the nonage and 
experiment of parliamentary and public liberty. An 
illustration which I saw the other day in an English 
paper, applied to France, has a much more apt applica- 
tion to Spain. The writer, after praising England 
for the substantial foundations of her government, 
indicates that France, owing to repeated shakings, is 
still unsettled. Its component particles have never yet 
found their level. There is no stratification, scarcely 
even have the various elements had time to crystallize. 
He does not find in France, and it is still harder to 
find in Spain, a strong granite basis, the result of many 
fiery processes it may be, but formed and welded 
together into an indissoluble whole. Upon that kind 
of foundation alone the superimposed strata lie easily 
and firmly. We shall see ! 

From Biarritz, securely aloof from all the cares, 
tremors, and ills of Spanish travel, I can cast an eve 
backward, and reverently upward — to the Source of 
that Light of which I have been in search — to thank 
God that he has permitted me to see so much of what 
is rare in nature, beautiful in art, kind in courtesy, 
and sacred in worship. Only one thing doth Spain 
need. Not royal pageantry ; not historic memories ; 
not pictured or statuesque forms ; not heroic qualities ; 

' not the spirit of religious ehivaliy 

In fine harmcnic exaltation ' — 

z G 



44^ Angelic Advent to Spain, 

not grand cathedrals, or the still Grander Presence ; 
not mountains swelling splendidly from alluvial plains ; 
nor seas almost encircling its Peninsular borders with 
a blue girdle of beauty. Let the following fable, which 
Ford records, illustrate the one great, need of Spain, 
and suggest the problem which she is now attempting 
to solve : When San Ferdinand captured Seville from 
the Moor, and bore the conquest to heaven, the Virgin 
desired her champion to ask from the Supernal Power 
any favour for Spain. The King asked for a fine 
climate and sweet sun. They were conceded. For 
brave men and beautiful women. Conceded. For oil, 
wine, and all the fruits and goods of this teeming earth. 
This request was granted. ' Then, will it please the 
beauteous Queen of Heaven to grant unto Spain a 
good gove^'nment ? ' ' Nay, nay ! That can never be. 
The angels would then desert Heaven for Spain ! ' 

That angelic advent will never happen until some- 
thing nobler shall absorb the Spanish mind than the 
perpetual parade of nearly a quarter of a million of 
expensive soldiers, even though they march to the 
soul-inspiring, liberty-born Hymn of Riego ! 



THE END. 



PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND RONS, DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STHEET, 
AND CHARING CROSS. 



\^ 



Jk.rx Inaportant AT'oliziTie for OorLS\:iixLptives . 



WINTER AND SPKINCx 

ON THE 

SII0RE8 OF THE MEDITERRANEAN ; 

OB, 

THE RIVIERA, MENTONE, ITALY, CORSICA, SICILY, ALGERIA, 
SPAIN, ANP BIARRITZ, AS WINTER CLIMATES. 

By HENRY BENNET, M. D. 

1 vol. With Colored Plates, Wood Eiigraviugs, and Maps. 
Price 13.50. 



" Five-and-twenty years devoted to a laborious profession, 
aud the harassing cares which pui'sue a hard-worked London phy- 
sician, broke down vital powers. In 1859 I became consump- 
tive, and strove in vain to arrest the disease. At last, resign- 
ing all professional duties, I v/rapped my robes around me and 
departed southward, in ihe autumn of the year 1859, to die in a 
quiet corner, as I and my friends thought. 

"It was not to be so. The reminisceiices of former travel 
took me to Mentone, on tlie Genoese Riviera, and, under its 
genial sky, freed from the labors and anxieties of former life, to 
my very great surprise, I soon began to rally."— .Ec/rfl-x-^ from 
Preface. 

D. APPLETOIif & 00., Publishers, 

Nos. 90, 92 & 94 Grand St., New York. 

The above work will he forwarded bi/ '>nail^free of postage^ on re- 
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